'It was you who stabbed Peter Gunn' - Defence barrister accuses prosecution witness
A man accused of murder has claimed that it was a prosecution witness who carried out the killing after the deceased man teased him about being questioned in connection with a sexual assault.
Alan Harte with an address at Clareville Grove in Glasnevin, but from East Wall, has pleaded not guilty to murdering Peter Gunn (aged 28) on January 4, 2009 in Cabra Park, Cabra.
The 32-year-old is on trial at the Central Criminal Court, accused of stabbing the father-of-two to death and dumping his body in a water-filled ditch.
Kastriot Boza testified yesterday that he saw the accused stab Mr Gunn in the chest shortly after hearing them exchange words about Mr Harte’s uncle.
However, while cross examining the 41-year-old today, Mr Harte’s barrister put it to him that none of this happened and it was he who had killed Mr Gunn.
On behalf of the accused, Patrick Marrinan SC put it to the Albanian that he was the one who had exchanged words with Mr Gunn in a pub earlier that morning.
He suggested that, in the presence of his client, Mr Gunn had joked that he didn’t like foreigners ‘running off with our women’.
He suggested that Mr Boza had replied in a funny way: ‘Peter, Peter, Peterphile’.
“And he turned to you and said: ‘You’re a fine one to be talking’,” continued Mr Marrinan. “Weren’t you arrested for sexual assault?”
Mr Boza agreed that he had been questioned in connection with a sexual assault, but said Mr Gunn had never mentioned it to him.
“You said to him aggressively: ‘Don’t say that to me again or I’ll kill you’,” suggested the barrister.
“I never said that, never ever,” replied the witness.
Mr Boza had testified that he, the accused, the deceased and another man had gone back to Mr Boza’s bedsit in Cabra Park and that this is where Mr Harte had stabbed Mr Gunn.
“It was you who stabbed Peter Gunn,” suggested Mr Marrinan.
“Absolutely not,” replied Mr Boza.
“You said to Alan Harte it was over what Peter Gunn had said back in the pub about the sexual assault,” continued Mr Marrinan.
Mr Boza denied this and also denied threatening the accused with the knife and telling him that he was going to cut up the body and dump it.
“I came here and am telling everyone the truth about what happened Peter Gunn,” he said later. “He was killed in cold blood.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of six men and six women.
