Under arrest & cuffed but wise cracks flowed

GERRY Hutch joked to a garda who swooped on him with Spanish police in a restaurant by saying: “The jacket, you must be roastin’ in that.”

- JOHN HAND

RTE Prime Time last night revealed new details on the operation which led to The Monk’s arrest in Fuengirola in August 2021.

It came over five years after he left Ireland following the murder of his brother Eddie. That came just three days after the Hutch gang orchestrated the Regency Hotel attack in February 2016 where David Byrne was shot dead.

In fresh footage of his arrest in the Limoncello Restaurant, plain clothes Spanish police, members of the Guardia Civil and an Irish officer wearing a garda jacket brought the suspect to a toilet in the eatery to search him.

But despite finally being captured, he never lost his composure.

After the joke about the jacket, he then made reference to a veteran crime journalist and added: “Is this all for Paul Williams, is it?”