Man jailed for 4 years for firearm offences

A Limerick City man who was arrested by Gardai as he was in the process of transferring a high powered pistol across the city for someone else has been jailed at Limerick court today.

46 year old Stephen Fitzgerald, of no fixed abode but originally from Limerick, had been accused of suspicious possession of a Glock semi-automatic pistol and 19 rounds of ammunition when he was detained by the Garda Emergency Response Unit in Rhebogue on April 10th 2008.

In court today Judge Carroll Moran was told of how three relatives of the defendant had been shot and killed in the Limerick feud. His brother in law was shot dead just days before his arrest, his nephew was murdered in 2003 and another relative was gunned down in 2002. The court was also told that he had aligned himself to the Keane/Collopy gang.

Judge Moran sentenced him to 4 years in jail backdated to the time of his arrest last April.

Mr Fitzgerald’s arrest was the first in the history of the state in which a tazer gun was used by arresting Gardai.