Main pic: Pearse McAuley pictured in 2015. Pic: RTE News.
Convicted garda killer Pearse McAuley was found dead at his home in Strabane yesterday.
He was part of the IRA gang that shot dead Detective Garda Jerry McCabe during the attempted robbery of a post office van in Adare in Co Limerick in 1996, having escaped from Brixton Prison five years earlier.
More recently, RTE News reports, he developed links with the Hutch Organised Crime Group and put the gang in contact with dissident republicans in the North.
He was released from prison two years ago after serving a 12 year sentence for a violent knife attack on his then wife, Sinn Féin TD Pauline Tully.
McAuley spent much of his life in prison for IRA and criminal activity.
The 59-year-old shot his way out of Brixton prison in 1991 while awaiting trial for conspiracy to murder.
While on the run he was part of the four man IRA gang that shot dead Detective Garda McCabe and seriously wounded Detective Garda Ben O’ Sullivan in Adare in 1996.
McAuley was sentenced to 14 years for manslaughter after key witnesses had been intimidated and were too frightened to testify in a murder trial.
He was granted special release in 2003 to marry Ms Tully, whom he violently attacked six years later, for which he was sentenced to another 12 years.
He was released two years ago and had returned to Strabane, where he was originally from. He was found dead at his home there yesterday. It is believed he died of natural causes.
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