A 28-year-old man is to appear in court charged in connection with the circulation of a video which contained a threat to shoot Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris.
The man was arrested in Dublin this morning by officers from the Special Detective Unit.
He was questioned throughout the day and following consultations with the Director of Public Prosecutions, he was charged with an offence under the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act.
He is accused of making threats intending the other to believe they will be carried out, to kill or cause serious harm to that other.
The offence carries a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.
The video containing the threats was first posted on TikTok and then widely circulated on other social media platforms and WhatsApp groups and has gone viral.
It shows a man wearing a black balaclava threatening to "shoot" Ms McDonald "for free" and "take Drew Harris' throat off".
The man said the Garda Commissioner would be getting "blasted before the end of the year".
The man also threatened gardaí in Coolock that he would "petrol bomb … the lot of them".
The Sinn Féin leader described the video as very shocking, very disturbing and a blatant and blunt death threat.
Ms McDonald reported it to gardaí who commenced a criminal investigation which was led by the Special Detective Unit, which investigates subversive, terrorist and organised crime and threats to the State.
It was supported by other garda specialist unit is including the Garda Cyber Crime Unit and Security and Intelligence at Garda Headquarters.
The man is being detained in garda custody tonight pending his appearance before the Dublin District Court tomorrow morning.
TikTok said this afternoon that the video violated its community guidelines which prohibit violent threats and incitement.
It also said the content had been removed from its platform and the account has been banned.
Meta also claimed the video had been removed from Facebook but RTÉ News was still able to access it through the site and it is also widely available on other social media platforms.
Neither TikTok nor Meta would say how long was the video was on their platforms, why it was not taken down immediately, if they were cooperating with the garda investigation or whether their content moderation and security procedures have proven to be extremely weak in this case.
