Double-murderer refused leave to appeal

A Chinese man who was sentenced to life for the double murder of two Chinese students has been refused leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

The three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal in delivering judgment said it could "not see any basis" for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Chinese national Yu Jie (aged 27) was jailed for life in 2003 after a jury in the Central Criminal Court convicted him of the double murder of his friends in Dublin in March 2001.

His defence counsel had sought a section 29 application seeking an order from the Court of Criminal Appeal granting leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

"This Court is quite satisfied" that there is "no point of law to be certified to be argued in the Supreme Court," the Court of Criminal Appeal held.

Yu Jie, with a last address at McKee Avenue, Finglas, Dublin, denied the murder of 19-year-olds Mr Yue Feng and Ms Liu Qing in an apartment at Blackhall Square, North King Street, Dublin, between March 12 and March 14, 2001.

The trial, which began on January 13, lasted 60 days and was the longest jury trial in Irish legal history.

Yu Jie strangled Yue Feng on the afternoon of March 12, 2001. He left the apartment but returned later to wait for Liu Qing.

When she came home, he strangled her too. He then dragged the bodies to the couple's bedroom and laid them on a double bed.

He returned the next day and again in the early hours of March 14, when he doused their bodies with

petrol and set fire to them.

He then cycled to the house he rented in Finglas, where one of his roommates found him "the same as usual".

It was argued on behalf of Yu Jie that his release on July 4, 2002, resulted in the original charge sheets becoming spent and that his re-arrest amounted to new proceedings against him.

As a result, it was submitted to the court that prints taken from Yu Jie at his initial arrest should have been destroyed.

The Court of Criminal Appeal noted in its judgement that Yu Jie was released "not by a direction of the DPP or of the gardaí but apparently by the governor of the prison".

It was argued on Yu Jie's behalf that the governor was part of the prosecution machinery and therefore a discharge by the governor amounted to a discharge by the DPP.

The Court said it could not accept that argument.

"Quite clearly the governor of a prison has no power whatsoever either to discontinue proceedings against an accused or to discharge the accused," the Court said.

"It may well be that the governor exceeded his authority in releasing the accused but that does not in any way bring him within the section, or invalidate the original charges against him."

"The accused was ultimately tired and convicted on foot of the original charges brought against him, in the course of the investigation of which the relevant prints were taken."

"This Court is quite satisfied (that there is) no point of law to be certified to be argued in the Supreme

Court," the Court of Criminal Appeal held.