Murder rates have rocketed here by 27% in just 10 years.

While Ireland still experiences homicide rates below those of our European partners, the rate at which the killing is growing is far out of line with the rest of the continent.

The brutal slaying of Baiba Saulite in north Dublin has dominated the country's media all week, but her murder may hold evenmore significance than most. The young Latvianmother is the first non-Irish victim of gangland crime, a phenomenon that looks set to cause the gardai major problems over the coming years.

While the row continued all week over the protection, or lack thereof, given to Saulite by gardai inthe weeks leading up to her killing, little public attentionwas given to the murder of 26-yearold Paul Reay inDrogheda.Reay was the latest name to be added to the list of young menwho have lost their lives in gangland crime over recent years.

But it is not just criminals who are now prone to extreme violence.There is an increasing tendency for disputes to be settled using violence. Fifteen-year-old Rebecca Kiely died from injuries sustained outside St Brigid's GAA club inDublin. She was struck on the headwith a baseball bat after getting caught in the crossfire of a late-night row between two men.

The horrific ordeal suffered by a young woman abducted from Dublin city centre and subjected to repeated threats of rape and murder shocked the country, but this was not the only sexually motivated assault of the past week. Two young girls in Swords were assaulted close to their homes by a manwho lured them away into a laneway beside a vacant house, while gardai in south Dublin continue to investigate a series of unrelated sexual assaults carried out over recent weeks.

The vulnerability of children to sexual attack was illustrated by the decision of a school in Skerries to inform parents about a man acting suspiciously in the area, who had approached three girls over recent weeks.This followed a previous story in the Sunday Tribune of a school in the south of the capital taking similiar steps.

All in a week's work for modern Ireland.

Eoghan Rice BAIBA Saulite could never have known her goodbyes were going to be forever.

As she bid farewell to three friends in the hallway of her Swords home on Sunday night, a contract killer burst inside and fired the fatal shots at the 28-year-old as her two infant sons slept upstairs.

Shot twice in the upper-body, Saulite was pronounced dead at the scene. Her horrific murder has left two children without a mother and the country in shock after the first gangland style shooting of a foreign national in Ireland.

Bouquets of flowers and a newspaper photograph of Saulite lay on a garden bench in front of her home last week as neighbours tried to come to terms with the tragedy in their new suburban development.

As in new housing developments all over Ireland, many foreign nationals have made the Holywell development their new home. One of them, a Spanish woman who lives just doors away from Saulite's home, recalled the events of the night. "My husband and I were sitting watching television when we heard the gunshots at 9.45pm, " she said.

"At first, I thought it was Hallowe'en fireworks. We looked out the window and could not see anything. Then we looked out again minutes later to see the ambulance and the gardai.

"The gardai called to ask us questions later that night and said there had been a shooting incident. It was the next morning before we heard that there had been somebody killed. It is shocking that something like this happened just a few doors away. I feel so sorry for the two little children that are left without any mother."

The father of Baiba Saulite's children, Hassan Hassan, is a convicted criminal. He was sentenced to four years in prison at Naas District Court last March for his involvement in a stolen car racket.

During his trial, it was revealed that the Lebaneseborn man had been stealing luxury cars to order in Leinster and exporting their parts from a warehouse in Colbinstown, near Kilcullen, Co Kildare, to Eastern Europe and the Middle East. His trial in March was not the first time that Hassan's name was aired in the public domain.

Appeal for help ON 6 December 2004, Hassan called to Saulite's house and took his sons Ali-Alexandra and Mohammed Rami from her on an agreed visit to stay with his sister in Blanchardstown.

Saulite became suspicious when he had not returned them by 7pm. Her sense of alarm was heightened when he repeatedly cut off her calls. She outlined the rest of the story during a subsequent public appeal on RTE radio's Liveline programme.

"He said that the kids are not going home again and you are not going to see them ever again, " she recalled.

Saulite went to the garda station in Swords to alert them that her children were missing, and contacted her Swords-based solicitor, John Hennessy, about her ordeal.

A warrant was issued in Swords court and executed by gardai in late December. On 11 January, Hassan was sent to jail for contempt of court after he failed to appear in court with the children, as scheduled, on 22 December.

He originally said that the children were in England, but it later emerged that they were in Syria.

In her Liveline interview, Baiba pleaded with Hassan's family to help with the return of the children. "All I want is my babies to be back home with their mammy, " she said. "I appeal to Hassan's relatives to ask themselves how they would feel if that was their kids. All kids need their mother."

Alex and Rami were Baiba's pride and joy. She even had a nickname for them . . . "two sons", a pun on her surname which means young sons in Latvian. It was never her plan to live with them in Ireland for a long tiome. Her ultimate goal, just as soon as she had got Ireland . . . and Hassan Hassan out of her system was to return home to Latvia, to the seaside town of Jurmala, where her family had holidayed when she was a child.

She came to Ireland in 1998, with her then boyfriend, attracted by stories of the Celtic Tiger, which was just beginning to make its roar heard across Europe. She worked as a manicurist in Dublin, but never properly settled. She split up with her boyfriend, who moved back to Latvia. Suddently she was alone, adrift in a big city, easy prey for a charmer who seemed to know it all.

According to Saulite, when the couple first met, Hassan told her that his name was Alex and he was Greek. She told Liveline that she believed him for a year before she found out his real identity. "I asked him if he was a Muslim as all his friends were Muslim. When the children were born, he started to act in an Islamic way. He started to tell us what we could eat and to act in a certain way. He started to tell me what I had to wear and what I had to do. He wouldn't let me go out and see my friends."

Saulite claimed that Hassan wanted to raise their children as Muslims and that she did not deny him this request. "I didn't say no to this, " she said.

"Even though I am a Christian and he is a Muslim, I thought we could work it out. He tried to push hard to have things his way. He said: 'if you let me know, I will give the kids back, ' but I didn't believe him."

Both children were born in Ireland and Saulite described Alex as "like all other boys. He speaks with an Irish accent." The younger boy, Romi, had "long curly hair and is always sucking his finger."

While the children had been reunited with their mother on 19 October, 2005, Saulite was eager to see Hassan tried in court for their abduction. Just over three weeks ago, on 7 November, Hassan pleaded guilty to two counts of child abduction under the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, and he is due to be sentenced on 15 December.

The Sunday Tribune has learned that Saulite had prepared a detailed victim impact statement which she had planned to read out at her estranged partner's sentencing hearing.

Intimidation and threats THE sense of shock last week at the murder of the young Latvian mother also reached Leinster House where the leader of the Seanad Mary O'Rourke sensationally pointed the finger of blame at Hassan for Saulite's killing. "It's difficult to read the article where the Latvian woman's husband, in the Irish Independent today, is suspected, " she said.

"He has a cast-iron alibi, but obviously was able to direct operations." She subsequently withdrew her comments.

On Friday, Hassan . . . his reputation well and truly trashed by people both inside and outside Leinster House . . . appeared at the Circuit Criminal Court, where his barrister Patricia Moran said that he was making an application for bail in order to care for his two young children.

Moran also asked Judge Michael White to consider granting temporary release to her client because he was anxious to attend his estranged wife's removal or funeral.

Judge White said that while he was aware that the two young boys were without a parent to care for them, he would not grant bail. The court was concerned that there was a substantial risk that Hassan might leave the jurisdiction with his children again, he said.

Prior to Judge White's ruling, Det Insp Walter O'Sullivan, who is leading the investigation into Saulite's murder, said he believed that Hassan could commit further serious offences, including murder and assault, if he was released.

Evidence of intimidation and threats made to Saulite's solicitor were also given to the court by two other gardai. The court heard that there was an attempted arson attack on Hennessy's home earlier this year. Petrol was poured through the solicitor's letter box, causing damage to his front hallway.

Sgt Liam Hughes told the court that Hennessy was in fear of his life and that fear was connected to Hassan. He had spoken to Saulite last Tuesday week, when she expressed concern about her solicitor's safety and the safety of the gardai involved in the abduction case. Hughes said that due to subsequent events, he believed that Hennessy and garda witnesses were in grave danger.

Hughes also said that Saulite's twice-weekly visits to see Hassan in jail, during which she was accompanied by her children, were made under duress.

A garda source in Swords told the Sunday Tribune during the week that threats had been made against two gardai based in the station. "A threat on a garda is a threat to the workings of our criminal justice system.

"It is not too unlike threats that were made to Veronica Guerin before she was murdered, " he said.

As Hughes concluded his evidence in the Circuit Criminal Court, Hassan stood up in court and shouted: "It is not true, not true. He is lying."

There was a tense atmosphere in the packed Court 24 of Dublin's Four Courts on Friday during Hassan's bail application.

The 38-year old was dressed in a white cardigan, blue jeans and white T-shirt with a blue trim.

He had his hair cut short and he kept his head down for much of his court appearance before he was led away by prison officers and gardai.

In referring to the threats made against Hennessy, Judge White said that it was "a very serious matter" and potentially undermining to the rule of law in a democracy."

Armed protection A MAJOR spat erupted during the week over the garda protection of Hennessy. The Law Society have insisted that he be given armed garda protection, while the gardai have said that, while the solicitor was given crime prevention advice and received attention, at no stage was there a garda operation to provide armed protection for him.

Saulite is reported to have told her close friends and neighbours that she was concerned for her safety, but gardai insist that they were not aware at any time of any specific threat against her life.

Saulite's brother and sister-in-law arrived in Dublin this week to take their loved one home for burial. When they were contacted by the Sunday Tribune this weekend, they said that they were grateful for all the messages of sympathy they had received, but they were "too upset" to talk about their loss.

They are understood to have recorded an appeal for information about Saulite's killing for this week's RTE Crimecall programme.

Saulite's body rests in a Dublin morgue today as her family awaits its release so they can fly her home to Latvia for burial.

Her estranged husband will sleep in a prison cell in Mountjoy tonight, while the couple's children are in the foster care of the state.

Baiba killing may herald new era of gangland violence in Ireland THE brutal murder of mother-of-two Baiba Saulite in north Dublin may offer a terrifying glimpse into the future of Irish homicide . . . nonnational gangland killings.

While the investigation into Saulite's murder remains at an early stage, it is widely believed that she was assassinated by a hired gunman with links to foreign, and possibly also Irish, criminal gangs. If Saulite was indeed murdered by a member of a non-Irish gang, or at least at the behest of a non-Irish criminal residing in Ireland, she could be classified as the first fatal victim of non-Irish gangland activity in this country.

While the steady rise in gangland killings has become a major issue in Ireland over the last six years, there has never before been a non-Irish person killed by a criminal gang. While there have been almost 80 people killed in gangland 'hits' since the beginning of the decade, each of the victims has been Irish.

Interestingly, even discounting the murder of Saulite, all but two of the victims have been male.

With West African gangs now highly active in the distribution of illegal drugs in north Dublin, and Eastern European gangs involved in fraud and other lucrative enterprises, authorities fear that the next major 'growth area' in homicide statistics will be among non-Irish criminals.

In February this year, a Lithuanian man was shot in Dublin as a result of a gangland dispute. He survived the attack, but the significance of the shooting was not lost . . .

immigrant criminal gangs are just as likely to resort to extreme violence as their Irish counterparts.

The dramatic rise in gangland violence in Ireland has already given the gardai a major headache. At 60%, the garda conviction rate for homicide remains well above the EU average, yet the conviction rate for gangland murders is just 20%.

The emergence of non-Irish criminal gangs throws up several problems for the gardai.

Aside from the obvious problems created by a rise in violence and serious crime, garda investigations into the activities of non-Irish gangs can be hampered by language barriers.

Another serious problem is the reluctance of immigrant communities to co-operate with investigating officers, often out of fear of the criminals. The lack of ties to Ireland on the part of the gang members is also a huge problem as they can easily flee the country and return to their homeland before gardai can apprehend them.

This last issue is well illustrated by the case of Adrian Bestea, a 21-year-old Romanian asylum seeker who was savagely beaten to death in July 2001. Bestea was not the victim of a gangland hit, but he was killed by non-Irish men acting as 'hired muscle'.

Two men were convicted of falsely imprisoning Bestea, while a woman was jailed for two years for her role in the assault. However, the Latvian man believed to have carried out the murder fled the country shortly after Bestea's death and was never apprehended.

The lack of information held by gardai on immigrant gang members is illustrated by the discovery of the body of Igor Bondarenco last month.

Thirty-five-year-old Bondarenco was found in the water off Howth by passersby. Just as gardai were forced to release images of Bestea's dead body in order to ascertain a positive identification from members of his community, gardai released pictures of Bondarenco's distinctive tattoos.

He lay unidentified for over a month before gardai eventually traced him through Interpol. Bondarenco had served an 11-year jail sentence in Latvia and was suspected of being behind a number of robberies and extortion attempts.

His death has been classified as suicide. While the level of Bondarenco's criminal activity in Ireland is unknown, his case illustrated the problems facing gardai when it comes to identification issues.

Ireland has experienced a rise in every category of homicide in recent years, from domestic gangland to fatal assaults on women and children, but the one category that had as yet remained closed was that of non-Irish gangland.

The brutal assassination of Baiba Saulite may have changed that.