REVENGE POSSIBLE MOTIVE BEHIND BRUTAL MURDERS

Revenge may have been the motive behind the gruesome mutilation and
murder of three young Irishmen.

It is now believed that the drugs gang who killed three young Irishmen
believed their victims had passed information about drug shipments to
the authorities. The killings were in revenge for the interception by
Irish and Dutch police forces of drug shipments.

Irish and Dutch police have had a remarkable string of success in
thwarting the illegal importation of drugs into this country in recent
months.

It is now feared the killers of the three Irishmen in an apartment in
the seaside resort town of Scheveningen, just outside The Hague, early
on Saturday morning, targeted the men because of the
interceptions.

The brutality and manner in which the horrific injuries were inflicted
indicate that the murderers tried to extract information from their
victims before killing them.

No positive identification of the three young men has yet been made by
the Dutch authorities, despite being supplied with some dental records
and other details by the Irish authorities.

Dutch forensic experts are now resorting to the use of DNA evidence.
Hannike Ecelmanc of the Public Prosecutor's office in Holland said it
will take at least another day before they can identify the three men.

She said their priority at this stage of the investigation was to
identify the three men and track down their killers.

We will find the killers, Ms Ecelmanc promised. Police working
in this part of Holland have a 90% success rate in tracking down murderers.

Among the theories being considered by police is that a drugs gang
feared one or all of the men were responsible for passing on
information to the police about the gang's drug trafficking
enterprises.

Autopsy reports indicate the men were savagely beaten about the head
before they died and the bones in their hands were systematically
broken before they were shot dead.

Polyester foam, normally utilised on building sides, was sprayed into
the men's bodies while their genitals were mutilated in the course of
the savage murders.

The men were shot up to five times by their killers who then sprinkled
a highly flammable fuel on the bodies before setting them alight. Such
was the damage caused by the fire that initially it was thought the
men had died of injuries inflicted by a fire at the apartment.

Five passports found in the fire damaged apartment led Dutch police to
conclude that at least one of the victims was Irish.

All five passports were Irish. It has now emerged that one of the
passports was lost or stolen from a young County Limerick man over 18
months ago while he was in the Netherlands.

The man, John Noonan, in his 20s, from outside Ballyorgan, near the
East Limerick village of Kilfinnane, explained yesterday that the
passport was his. Mr Noonan lost his passport in Holland and was
issued with a temporary passport by the Irish embassy to return home.

Gardai say Mr Noonan has not come to their attention and is a law
abiding member of the community living and working in Fermoy for well
over a year.

However, police in Ireland and the Netherlands are endeavouring to
determine if the owners of the other passports - Damien Monahan, from
Ennis and brothers Vincent Costello, 29, and Gordon Costello from
outside the Tipperary village of Bansha - are alive and well, or if
they are the three men whose bodies are being examined by Dutch police.

A team of 18 detectives has been assigned to the case by the Dutch
police who are remaining incredibly tight lipped on the case.

A fifth passport found in the apartment in the name of Vanessa Cope
with a Newry, County Down address, may be a forgery or lost or stolen.