Double murder trial jury shown video footage

A jury in the trial of a Chinese national accused of the double murder of a student couple in Dublin two years ago has been shown video footage of the accused being interviewed by gardaí in custody.

Mr Yu Jie, aged 25, with a last address at McKee Avenue, Finglas, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of English language student Ms Liu Qing, aged 19, in an apartment at Blackhall Square, off North King St., Dublin 7, between 6pm on March 12 2001 and 3am on March 14 2001.

He has also denied the murder of Ms Liu's boyfriend, Mr Yue Feng, aged 19, between 1pm on March 12 and 3am on March 14 in the same place.

On the 39th day of evidence in the Central Criminal Court trial, the jury saw extracts from an interview with the accused man when he was being questioned in the Bridewell garda station following his arrest on March 22 2001.

The video extracts were shown during cross-examination of one of the interviewing gardaí, Detective Garda John Carroll.

On behalf of the accused, Mr Charles Corcoran BL put it to Det Gda Carroll that there were discrepancies between his written memo of the interview and the video footage and that there were also discrepancies between what the memo noted and what a Chinese policeman acting as an interpreter noted.

The jury heard that the Chinese policeman had typed the questions asked of the accused into his laptop in Mandarin Chinese and had later translated those notes into English.

Det Gda Carroll said that he was not a stenographer and nor had he any skills in shorthand. "The video tape is the most accurate recording of what transpired in the interview room and I was aware that the tape would be available to the court, if the matter went before a court", he told counsel.

Det Gda Carroll said that after one set of video tapes were full, they were unloaded, but as the interview was being restarted, the video machine kept ejecting the new tapes, so the interview switched to a different room, where audio taping was available.

The jury heard that during the interview, photographs taken from security footage at the Blackhall Square apartment building and at the USIT travel offices on Aston Quay were shown to the accused.

Mr Corcoran put it to Det Gda Carroll that no one could have identified themselves from the photographs shown. The witness said that the fact was that the accused had identified himself on them.

Mr Corcoran put it to him that the manner in which the photographs were shown to his client was "totally unfair".

He said that one image shown was a blown-up version of another one, but with no date and time on it.

The blown-up image was shown directly after the accused identified himself in eight photos taken from the USIT office footage.

But the blown-up image was in fact taken from the Blackhall Square apartments footage.

Yu Jie identified himself in all the images, including the blown-up image. He went on to identify himself in other photographs from the Blackhall Square footage.

Det Gda Carroll said that he "totally rejected" the claim that the manner in which the identification was done was unfair to Mr Yu.

"The stills were handed to me before I went in to the interview room as evidence to be put to the accused", he said.

He agreed with Mr Corcoran that another Chinese national had been identified as the man on the security footage.

But he told the court that following inquiries, that person was ruled out of the Garda investigation.

The officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Inspector John McMahon, has previously told the court that the man was ruled out because Garda inquiries showed he was in Portlaoise shortly after 8pm on Monday, March 12, while the suspect for the Blackhall Square murders was shown on CCTV footage in the apartment building at around 7pm.

The same man was picked up by gardaí in Portlaoise at 4am on the morning of March 14.

Mr Corcoran put it to Det Gda Carroll that in fact the man was in Dublin until 7:45pm on the night of March 12.

The detective said he was not aware of that.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Abbott and a jury.