A man (31) has died following a suspected gangland shooting near Mountjoy Prison in Dublin this morning.
Mark Byrne had just been freed from the north inner city prison on day release when he was killed.
The Tallaght criminal, who was scheduled for full release in August, was due back in prison this evening after his temporary release on compassionate grounds.
Mark Byrne following his court case in 2003 for escaping from custody
He was approached by another man at the corner of Berkeley Road and Eccles Street at around 9.55am. The attacker shot the victim three times - once in the head - before escaping on foot.
The injured man was tended at the scene by a medical team but died at around 10.45am.
There were a number of witnesses to the attack, which happened on a busy street thronged with traffic and pedestrians.
The scene has been preserved for a Garda technical examination and a postmortem is due to be carried out on the dead man later today.
Byrne, from Kilcarrig Green, Tallaght, was serving a total of five years in prison after being convicted in 2001 of a string of robberies. His sentence was extended by two years in 2003 after he escaped from custody on a visit to a Dublin hospital.
In January 2002, he was taken in custody from Portlaoise Prison to St James's Hospital to receive the results of HIV tests. The prison van stopped at a McDonald's on the return journey to get food for him but he produced a knife on one prison officer and threatened he would stab him.
He escaped and was unlawfully at large for over a month; he was driving a stolen car when gardaí arrested him. His blood tests proved negative.
It is understood gardaí believe today's shooting was gangland-related. Early indications are it was a professional hit. It was the fifth fatal shooting in Dublin in the past month.
Andrew Glennon (30) was killed at a housing estate near Clonee village last Saturday; Terry Dunleavy (27), originally from Marino, Dublin, was shot in the head outside Croke Villas flats on Sackville Avenue off Ballybough Road on April 15th.
On April 12th Joseph Rafferty (28), originally from the north inner city, was shot dead outside his apartment in the Ongar Park estate in west Dublin, and Jimmy Curran (42) was shot dead as he sat drinking in the Green Lizard pub in the south inner city on April 3rd.
Another man was shot in the hand and stomach in Ballymun on April 27th but survived.
It has not been established if any of the shootings are related.