Victim’s brother secures order quashing inquest’s suicide verdict

A BROTHER of model Irma Mali’s former boyfriend, the late Marius Simanaitis, has secured a High Court order quashing an inquest verdict that Mr Simanaitis committed suicide with a handgun and a new inquest has been ordered by Mr Justice Peter Charleton.

The judge said the background to the case was that on March 11, 2009, the applicant, Donatus Simanaitis’s brother Marius died in circumstances where he had a gun in his hand and there was a single gunshot to his head at his apartment off the Navan Road, North Dublin.

For the sake of neutrality, the judge said the three people he described as A, B and C were with him at the time of his death. He said A and B were girlfriend and boyfriend and they were drinking from 3pm until 6am the next morning. Two bottles of vodka and one bottle of Hennessy cognac were consumed. The boy and girl went to the next room leaving Marius, on the couch together with another pal he called C. It was in the course of that time when the lights were off there was gunshot. C was startled and heard a noise like a scratching or shuffling and found the deceased had fallen over and had a hole in his head with blood everywhere.