Gardaí fabricated my statement, claims alleged victim
A woman has told a jury that gardaí had fabricated a statement in which it is alleged she claimed her brother threatened to kill her at her home.
Ms Rawaa Hassan, speaking through an interpreter, told the court the statement was inaccurate and that there was nothing between her and her brother, Hassan Hassan.
She said if she were afraid of him she would have moved house and asked for garda protection.
In reply to a comment from Mr Dominic McGinn BL, prosecuting, that she had decided not to give evidence against her brother because she had either resolved her differences with him or that she was still afraid of him, she said: "I am afraid of nobody. There is no animosity between me and my brother. His children are living with me."
Mr Hassan (aged 38) of Rivervalley Close, Swords, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to making a threat to kill or cause his sister serious harm at her home on August 9, 2005.
Ms Hassan told Mr McGinn that she talked to the garda through her son because she cannot speak English.
She said she never told investigating gardaí that her brother came into her bedroom, grabbed her hand and told her, as written in the statement: "I kill you. You don't know what time I kill you."
She also denied that she told gardaí that Mr Hassan said "I give someone to give a fire in this house" and that he would break all her teeth and "give something to my eyes so I cannot see".
Ms Hassan said she did not tell gardaí that Mr Hassan also told her: "I am king. I am anytime coming into this house and you cannot tell me out."
Ms Hassan did not accept Mr McGinn's suggestion that her brother told her she was not a Muslim woman and replied: "He knows I am a Muslim, why would he tell me that?"
She claimed, in evidence, that she never said that when Mr Hassan left the house she was still afraid because her brother "was full, full crazy" and said that if she were afraid of him she would move home and look for Garda protection.
Ms Hassan did not accept a suggestion from Mr McGinn that the statement was an accurate record given directly by her to gardaí because she said she could not speak English.
She agreed she signed the statement at the bottom of each page but said that she did this because she thought she was obliged to sign anything a garda wrote.
She also denied that the gardaí read the statement back to her.
She said she had not called the gardaí at all that night, but accepted that her teenage daughter had.
Ms Hassan did not accept another suggestion that she could speak English well enough to give this statement to the gardaí and replied: "If I can speak English, why did I need my seven-and-a-half-year-old son to stay with me to talk to the police."
She denied that she had not sought to change her statement or withdraw it before now and told the jury that she called to the Garda station three times to speak to the garda who took statement, but was always told he was not there.
She claimed that when gardaí called to her home in December to advise her of the upcoming trial she told them there was nothing between her and her brother and she had nothing against him.
She did not accept a suggestion from Mr McGinn that "for whatever reason, you have decided not to give your evidence in court" and that the garda statement was true.
The trial continues before Judge Frank O'Donnell and a jury of 10 women and two men.
