The man named in court as having shot dead Veronica Guerin almost 10 years ago will not settle in Ireland following his release from prison, a family spokesman has said.
Patrick Eugene "Dutchy" Holland (66) was released from Portlaoise Prison in the early hours of Saturday morning after serving nine years of a 12-year sentence for drugs offences.
He later flew from Dublin to Rome, where he plans to undergo a lie-detector test as early as today.
He believes the test will back his assertion that he did not shoot Veronica Guerin.
His nephew, James Holland, last night told The Irish Times that although his uncle would return to Dublin later this week for a series of planned media interviews, he would not settle in Ireland.
"He has to find a place to live but it won't be here. Settling in Ireland would be out of the question as far as he is concerned after all that's happened and has been said about him."
Mr Holland flew to Rome with his legal adviser, Giovanni di Stefano, who claims to have advised a number of well-known figures, including Saddam Hussein. A television crew from Sky News Ireland accompanied them, according to James Holland.
They recorded a series of interviews over the weekend, which will be broadcast tonight. He also plans to do a number of interviews with Irish newspapers in which he is expected to repeat his claim that he was not the gunman who killed Veronica Guerin.
Mr Holland, who was a member of the John Gilligan drugs gang, was originally sentenced to 20 years, but this was reduced in 1998 to 12 years after he appealed the sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal.