Gerry Hutch was heard discussing the possibility of a ceasefire with the Kinahan Organised Crime Group in a recorded conversation with Jonathan Dowdall.
The recording is being played in Mr Hutch’s trial for the murder of David Byrne, who was shot dead during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel in Dublin in 2016.
It is the prosecution’s case that former Sinn Féin councillor, Jonathan Dowdall, drove Gerry Hutch to Northern Ireland on March 7th, 2016 to meet with his Republican contacts.
This was one month after the Regency Hotel attack and by now, his jeep was under surveillance. A tracker and an audio recording device had been placed on it.
The two men discussed lots of things en route to this alleged meeting. Dowdall did most of the talking.
At one point, Dowdall asked Mr Hutch if there was any truth in a newspaper article claiming he had held peace talks with the Kinahans in the Netherlands.
He said there wasn’t.
In a discussion about the feud, Mr Hutch told Dowdall he was against murder and said “there had to be another way of punishing people”.
They also chatted about the possibility of mediation, but Mr Hutch said he wasn’t going to show a “weak hand” by going to the Kinahans in search of peace.
