Prisoner was beaten two days before attack that killed him..

HORROR AT BRUTAL MURDER IN MOUNTJOY

- JOHN HAND

• CCTV trawled as four suspects held in isolation
• Kinahan grudge one line of inquiry for investigators

THE prisoner who died yesterday following a vicious beating had only been moved from another part of the jail after being assaulted two days before the fatal attack.

The Irish Mirror can reveal inmate Robert O’Connor had been targeted last Wednesday on the D Wing of Mountjoy Prison in Dublin

As a result, authorities moved him to the C Wing, where up to four thugs attacked him in a cell at around 6pm on Friday evening.

Gardai are now treating the investigation as a murder inquiry after O’Connor’s life support machine at the nearby Mater Hospital was switched off in the early hours of yesterday morning.

His injuries were so severe – including a bleed on the brain after his head was repeatedly stamped on – that medics had admitted in recent days that he had no chance of survival.

Investigators are working on one theory that O’Connor’s brutal beating was ordered by a Kinahan assassin who believed his close relative had targeted him for a hit – and that O’Connor had agreed to carry it out.

But that supposed gun attack never came about.

The 34-year-old has been in prison custody since October serving time, first in Cloverhill, before being moved to Mountjoy in February.