A 33-YEAR-OLD man was paid €10,000 to murder his friend, who was “lured” to a country lane and “riddled” with bullets in an “execution-style killing”, the Central Criminal Court heard this morning as it jailed him for life.

Conor Dolan, with an address at Ashbrook Apartments, Navan Road, Dublin 7, pleaded guilty in July to murdering Neil Fitzgerald (36) at Hills Lane, Crooksling, Tallaght, Dublin 24 on 5 June 2016.

Dolan pleaded guilty two days after a second jury had to be empanelled because a prison officer stood too close to the defendant in view of jurors during his first trial, which his defence team argued could have had a prejudicial effect.

Dolan originally pleaded not guilty to the charge on 4 July of this year.

Lorcan Staines SC, in his opening address, said the prosecution would use circumstantial evidence to prove that Dolan arranged to pick up the deceased from a pub in Tallaght before driving to the remote area where Fitzgerald’s body would be discovered the following day.

Today, Staines said Fitzgerald’s body was found on a quiet country lane where south Dublin turns into countryside on the route south from Tallaght towards Blessington in Co Wicklow.

He was, Staines said, “riddled with bullets” having been shot six times in an “execution-style killing”.

Staines said Fitzgerald sustained nine gunshot wounds, three of which were exit wounds, when his body was discovered by a local at the rural lane in Crooksling.

Staines said that after Dolan had taken cocaine he had confided in his ex-girlfriend, the mother of his child, that he carried out the murder for €20,000 but had only been paid €10,000.

Today at the Central Criminal Court, Ms Justice Eileen Creedon sentenced Dolan to the mandatory life sentence for the murder of Fitzgerald.

Ms Justice Creedon extended her sympathy to the family of Fitzgerald, who was known as Ozzie, and said “the only sentence open to the court is life imprisonment”.

Ms Justice Creedon then back-dated the sentence to 15 May 2020, when Dolan was arrested and placed in custody at Dublin Airport by Detective Garda Conor Harrison upon Dolan’s extradition from the UK.

During Dolan’s trial, a new jury had to be empanelled on the second day of the trial after the defence successfully applied to have the jury discharged.

Mr Paul Murray SC, defending Dolan, had submitted to Ms Justice Creedon that prison officers had approached the defendant and were standing too near him while the jury was still in the courtroom, creating a possible prejudice in the eyes of the jury.