Man 'bragged about killing', trial told
A witness has told the Central Criminal Court that a Dublin man accused of the murder of Adel Essalhi bragged about the killing and claimed “not even people walking their dogs” would find the body.
Wayne Kinsella (aged 40) with an address at The Plaza, Tyrrelstown, but who is originally from Finglas, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Essalhi (aged 31) in the fields behind the Plaza in Tyrrelstown, Blanchardstown, on January 6, 2011.
Witness Jemma Deegan told counsel for the prosecution, Mr Alex Owens SC, that on January 6 last year she was living in her mother’s duplex apartment in Tyrrellstown Plaza, where the accused man Wayne Kinsella was also staying.
She said on that on the afternoon in question a number of people were drinking in the apartment, including her mother, Wayne Kinsella and a man who introduced himself as Ali.
Ms Deegan told Mr Owens that she was not drinking and had stayed in her room most of the afternoon and evening, but that she went upstairs to the living room after hearing her mother was about to leave the apartment to go to a party.
She described seeing Ali, who was “fast asleep” in a chair, being awoken and dressed in Wayne Kinsella’s white hoody by the accused man and his relative. Ms Deegan said that all three men then left the apartment sometime after midnight.
She told Mr Owens that when Wayne Kinsella and his relative returned an hour later, they bragged to her in the kitchen about “what they had done to Ali”.
Ms Deegan said that when she asked Wayne Kinsella where Ali was, he told her Ali was “brown bread” and “not even people walking their dogs will find him”.
She said Wayne Kinsella’s relative was mostly laughing and agreeing with what the accused man was saying, and that she noticed both men had blood on their jeans.
Ms Deegan said the two men began stripping their clothes off and that she remembered Wayne hanging a pair of jeans over a chair, while some clothes were thrown beside a washing machine.
She told Mr Owens that the next day she again talked with a “hyper” Wayne Kinsella in the kitchen of the apartment, where he bragged about cutting Ali’s throat and stabbing him “nearly 60 times”.
Ms Deegan said Wayne Kinsella then left the apartment and returned a short time later carrying a tightly wrapped black bag that smelled of petrol and was shaped like a petrol can.
She told Mr Owens that the accused man again left the apartment with his relative and when they later returned, the pair were greeted by two gardaí who had called to the premises on an unrelated matter.
Ms Deegan told the court that Wayne Kinsella remarked “that was close one” after the two gardaí had left the apartment.
She said that there was a further conversation between Wayne Kinsella, his relative and two other women in the kitchen, where the two men described what they had done to Ali and how they had made an unsuccessful attempt to burn his body.
Under cross examination by counsel for the defence, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, Ms Deegan agreed that she was “not someone trusted to tell the truth”.
She told Mr O’Higgins that this was because in certain situations she felt she had “loyalties” to people.
Asked if she had told gardaí “lot of lies”, Ms Deegan said that she had told gardaí lies at the start of the investigation out of loyalty to Wayne Kinsella’s relative.
Put to her by Mr O’Higgins that the prosecution case was that Adel Essalhi, Wayne Kinsella and his relative left the apartment around 9:05pm on January 6, with the accused and his relative returning about 9:35pm, Ms Deegan said she was not sure of the time as it had been “a long day”.
She agreed that she was on methadone at the time but disagreed that she had taken “lots of tablets”.
In his opening address to the jury, Mr Owens said it was the prosecution case that Wayne Kinsella and a relative lured Mr Essalhi to a field behind the Plaza apartments and murdered him having “got it in to their heads” he was involved in the death of Wayne Kinsella’s brother Lee.
On Friday the court heard evidence from State Pathologist Professor Marie Cassidy, who said the deceased man was violently assaulted with a machete-type weapon and a knife, and died after suffering almost 60 chop, stab and slash wounds to his head, neck and trunk.
The jury also viewed extensive CCTV footage which gardaí testified showed the movements of Adel Essalhi and the accused man Wayne Kinsella on January 6, 2011.
Garda Pamela Lydon told Mr Owens that footage from a CCTV camera inside a pub on Parnell Street on the afternoon of January 6 showed a man who she believed to be Mr Essalhi passing two pints of beer to a man she identified as Wayne Kinsella, who was wearing a white striped top.
Gda Lydon said that footage from a CCTV camera in Tyrrelstown showed three individuals who she identified as Wayne Kinsella, Adel Essalhi and a woman entering the Plaza Apartment complex after arriving in a taxi shortly after 3pm on January 6.
The trial continues tomorrow in front of Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and a jury of seven women and five men.
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