Brian Downes and employee Eddie Ward became the 12th and 13th victims of a bloody feud between two rival Drimnagh drug gangs when they were shot dead in Walkinstown on Friday night.

Detectives suspect that a well-known criminal serving a lengthy jail sentence ordered the assassination. Downes (40) was well-known to gardai. He operated on the fringes of one of the Drimnagh gangs allegedly led by 'Fat' Freddie Thompson (26). Downes was arrested in connection with the gangland murder of John Roche in Kilmainham in March 2005.

Gardai say that Ward (24) was in the wrong place at the wrong time.