A Limerick gangland criminal serving two life sentences for gun murders is in a critical condition in hospital after it a package of drugs apparently burst inside his body.
Gary Campion (32), from Moyross, was found unresponsive in a close supervision cell in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, just before 8am on Thursday.
Prison sources said he had been placed in the cell amid suspicions he had been passed drugs on a visit and had concealed them internally.
In such cases prisoners are placed in close observation cells until they pass whatever contraband they have hidden in their bodies.
However, when Campion was due to be unlocked from his cell on Thursday morning, he was found unresponsive and staff immediately began trying to revive him.
He was treated in the prison for about 40 minutes and then taken by ambulance to the Mater Hospital beside the Mountjoy campus on the North Circular Road.
There were fears he was about to die and his next of kin were informed.
Campion was continuing to receive medical treatment in hospital on Thursday night, but his condition was said to be grave.
Plastic packaging
Small quantities of drugs for swallowing or packing into a prisoner’s body are usually wrapped in plastic that is designed to withstand being inside a human body for a number of days.
Some criminal elements specialise in sealing drugs inside reinforced capsules that do not dissolve in water and seldom split.
It appears Campion was passed drugs, but the packaging split and overwhelmed his internal system.
The Irish Prison Service confirmed a prisoner in Mountjoy had been hospitalised but said details of individual cases could not be disclosed.
Campion carried out a number of shootings for payment on behalf of both sides in a Limerick gangland feud.
In July 2009, then aged 26, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of “Fat” Frankie Ryan on September 17th, 2006.
Campion had only been out of prison for a few days when Ryan collected him from his home in Moyross and they drove around the area with another man.
As they were making small talk, Campion leaned in between the two front seats and shot Ryan in the head.
The other man in the car gave a statement to gardaí but withdrew it due to fear.
However, it was still used in the case because legislation had been enacted to allow the use of statements made by witnesses who later resiled from them.
Nightclub killing
Campion had previously been in jail in relation to killing nightclub head of security Brian Fitzgerald, who was shot because he refused to allow the McCarthy-Dundon gang to sell drugs in the club where he worked.
On November 29th, 2002, Campion agreed to drive UK gunman James Martin Cahill to Mr Fitzgerald’s house to shoot him after the initial getaway driver pulled out.
Cahill later confessed to the murder and implicated Campion.
Cahill said he had shot Mr Fitzgerald for a payment of €10,000.
Mr Fitzgerald’s wife had witnessed her husband being shot outside their home on Brookhaven Walk in Limerick after getting up in the early hours to give their youngest child a bottle.
She saw Campion’s eyes through his motorbike helmet visor and identified him by his distinctive thick dark eyebrows.
Campion is suspected of at least two other murders and once threatened to kill a prison officer.
He told the officer he had shot people in Limerick for €10,000 and would have “no problem” paying twice that sum to have him killed.
“It wouldn’t be my first time,” he told his victim.
