GARDAÍ ARE to send a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions after releasing without charge a 23-year-old man held for questioning about the murder of a significant figure in the Cork drugs trade almost a year ago.
Detectives arrested the man in Banteer, north Cork, at about 8.10am on Saturday for questioning about the murder of 34-year-old father of four, David Brett, who was shot dead outside Foilagohig national school near Ballydesmond, north Cork, on May 21st, 2007.
The man was arrested under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act and brought to Bandon Garda station where he was questioned for more than 12 hours before being released without charge shortly before midnight on Saturday.
The arrest is the first by gardaí investigating the murder of Mr Brett whom gardaí believe was lured to the remote townland outside Ballydesmond by someone he knew and trusted before being shot a number of times in the head and neck.
Just last month, an inquest into Mr Brett's death was opened and adjourned by the coroner, Dr Michael Kennedy, after Insp Senan Ryan said that the investigation is ongoing and criminal proceedings are being considered.
The inquest heard that Jeremiah Roche from Newmarket discovered Mr Brett's body shortly before 10.30am on May 21st, 2007 after he received a phone call from his sister-in-law, saying she had seen a body on the roadway near Foilagohig national school as she drove by.
Mr Roche contacted gardaí. Mr Brett was pronounced dead at the scene. Later Mr Brett's partner, Michelle Buckley, officially identified his body at Cork University Hospital.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster, who examined the deceased's body at the scene and later carried out a postmortem, told the inquest in Mallow that Mr Brett died through a combination of haemorrhage and shock as a result of gunshot wounds to the head and neck.
Garda sources have described Mr Brett as prominent in the Cork drug scene and they believe he moved from the importation of ecstasy and cannabis in the late 1990s to the importation of more lucrative and less bulky cocaine over the past three to four years.
A native of Togher on Cork's southside, Mr Brett lived at Cromogue, near Liscarroll, about 11km (seven miles) from Charleville in north Cork with his partner Michelle, daughter Michaela and sons David, Cian and Darragh.
He had been caught drug dealing when he and an associate - John Murphy, from Glen Heights Road, Ballyvolane, Cork - were arrested with more than €100,000 worth of ecstasy tablets at Murragh, Ballymartle, in Cork on October 22nd, 1998.
Murphy was given a 12-year sentence for his part in the drug-dealing operation and Mr Brett was given a seven-year suspended sentence, but this was later appealed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and Mr Brett was given a two-year term and released in 2003.
