DRUGS GANG TORTURED, EXECUTED IRISH TRIO

AN international drugs gang, suspected of having mutilated, shot and
burned three Irishmen found in their gutted luxury apartment near the
Hague at the weekend, could be holding two other hostages.

Last night, Dutch police said they had discovered five passports in
the apartment where the savage butchery took place. The three men's
genitalia were understood to have been cut off before they were shot
and burned. Passports found at the scene of the grisly murders were
the property of Damien Monaghan from Ennis and brothers Vincent and
Morgan Costello from Bansha, County Tipperary. Dutch police, with the
co-operation of the garda authorities, were still trying to establish
if the passports were those of the murdered men.

Two other passports - one for a Northern Ireland woman with a British
passport and the second that of an Irishman - led to speculation in
Holland that the murder gang may be holding hostages as Dutch police
have been unable to trace the whereabouts of John Noonan, from
Limerick and Vanessa Cope, from Newry, County Down.

Dutch police staged a special TV public appeal for information last
night and expressed concern for the safety of the Limerick man and
Newry woman.

The badly mutilated bodies were soaked in petrol and set alight after
they had been beaten up, tortured and shot at their pounds 500-a-month
beach-side apartment in the resort of Scheveningen near the Hague.

The ages of the three deceased ranged from 22 to 29 years. All three
had been living in Holland for some time and were known to gardai.

The apartment was sublet under the name of Damien Monaghan. Dutch
neighbours said there was a lot of coming and going by Africans and
South Americans and Monaghan had two Dutch flatmates until recently.
Neighbours also reported an overwhelming smell of cannabis from the
fifth floor apartment. Dutch investigators found ecstasy-manufacturing
equipment in the flat and it was believed the group had clashed with
an international drugs trade syndicate, based in either Holland or
Colombia.

Dutch police described the killings as ''merciless, and very, very
violent'' and said attempts had been made to destroy much of the
evidence. When officers first arrived on the scene they believed the
men had been killed in a fire. But later it was discovered they had
all been shot after being subjected to vicious beatings.

Dutch and Irish police have worked closely together over the past four
years since the murder in Dublin of investigative crime journalist
Veronica Guerin. Some of the gang involved in that killing were known
to have fled to Holland.

The community of Ennis was in a state of shock yesterday as news
filtered through that a 25-year-old local man may be one of three
Irishmen killed.

Shortly after four o'clock yesterday, the Interpol section of Garda
headquarters got in contact with Ennis gardai to obtain details in
relation to a Damien Anthony Monaghan from 43 Childers Road in the
Cloughleigh area of Ennis in an effort to positively identify one of
the three victims. Mr Monaghan, believed to be the eldest of ten, had
no previous convictions.

Local gardai were asked to obtain a recent photo, dental records, a
detailed description and fingerprints of the man.

There was a large media presence in the town of Bansha, County
Tipperary, the home of two local brothers who may have been among the
victims of the killings.