Irish boxing legend comes to defence of Gerry Hutch

Gerry Hutch is wanted in connecting with the Regency Hotel Shooting and the Hutch-Kinahan gang feud.

Recently the investigation of 2016’s Regency Hotel shooting, that resulted in the death of alleged Kinahan cartel lieutenant David Byrne, has gathered steam. Four men are due to stand trial in connection to the incident, which saw five armed men storm an MTK Global boxing weigh-in show and fire into the crowded room.

Among the charged individuals is Jonathan Dowdall, a former Dublin city councillor for the Sinn Féin party. Dowdall has been charged with murdering Byrne. Dowdall’s father, and three other men, are accused of securing hotel rooms and vehicles for the suspected gunmen.

An arrest warrant has also been ordered for Gerry Hutch, who authorities believe ordered the shooting as part of the ongoing gang war between the Hutch Gang and the Kinihan Organized Crime Group. It is thought that the Regency Hotel shooting was an attempt to kill Daniel Kinihan, the alleged leader of the KOCG, and was in response to an attempt made on Hutch’s life in a pub in Lanzarote, Spain.

The feud began when Hutch’s nephew was executed by suspected Kinahan members in Spain. Since then a number of Hutch’s family members have been killed in targeted shootings across Ireland.

The warrant for Hutch is European wide, since it is thought that Hutch has relocated from Spain and is now moving between European countries to avoid arrest.

According to Dublin Live Irish boxing legend, and friend of Hutch, ‘Big Joe’ Egan is requesting that Ireland’s authorities “leave [Hutch] alone and let him live his life.”

Egan, a seven time Irish boxing champion who famously had Hutch drive him and Mike Tyson around Dublin in 2006, is also a reported friend of Kinahan and the late Byrne. In speaking with The Star Egan said the killing of Byrne was “wrong on ever level.”

“David Byrne was my friend and I know his dad Jaws Byrne since I was a little boy. The thing is, to bring it into a boxing weigh-in, you know that was wrong on every level.

“When you spray a machine gun it’s an indiscriminate weapon. If you come in and fire a handgun you’re aiming at the target you’re going to hit.

“That room was full of boxing fans and boxers, so to go in and spray a machine-gun in a room full of people that weren’t involved in any criminal activity, that’s so wrong on so many levels. That’s taking it into depravity.”

Despite his feelings over the crime that was allegedly ordered by Hutch, Egan said he didn’t want to see his old friend prosecuted. “If he’s out of the country, leave him out of the country.”

Egan added that Hutch, “is a criminal mastermind” and doubted that he would ever turn himself into police. Egan also spoke on the feud reported between the Hutch and Kinahan families.

“You know it’s tragic. A lot of lovely people were murdered through this feud. A lot of mothers brothers, sisters have suffered through this feud. It’s tragic.

“Surely whatever differences they had could have been sorted a lot different to the way it’s been sorted because mother’s brothers sisters and fathers and friends have suffered on both sides of the feud.

“There’s a war going on with two factions. It’s gone beyond talking now. There has been too much bloodshed.”

Egan also reserved some praise for Daniel Kinahan, who moved to Dubai after the Regency Hotel shooting. From Dubai Kinahan has continued to advise the boxing careers of Tyson Fury and Billy Joe Saunders, despite MTK Global— the company he founded, which manages Fury, Saunders and many more fighters — claiming Kinahan had walked away from the sport.

“Daniel has done so much for boxing,” said Egan. “Even for the sport, he lives for the sport he doesn’t live off the sport.

“There’s a lot of parasites living off boxing and boxers. They use boxers as pieces of meat. Daniel Kinahan doesn’t treat boxers like pieces of meat. He treats them as athletes and as human beings, and I can only admire the man in that respect.”

Irish courts, politicians and press maintain that Kinahan is the leader of a $1 billion narcotic and gun smuggling network and that he is responsible for multiple murders in Ireland and mainland Europe. Kinahan’s ties to MTK were recently presented in the BBC program ‘Boxing and the Mob’. After that show aired one of the producers had to go into hiding after being informed of a credible threat against his life.