Ex-boyfriend accused of strangling Bruna Fonseca did not want to harm her, Cork murder trial told

The accused man also told gardaí that she began hitting him and that he tried to stop her hitting him by doing something he had seen on television

Bruna Fonseca was a native of Formiga in Minas Gerais province, northwest of Rio de Janiero, who had come to Cork in September 2022 and had been working as a contract cleaner at the Mercy University Hospital. File picture

The prosecution in a murder trial that opened in Cork on Monday alleged that on New Year’s Day 2023, 28-year-old Brazilian woman Bruna Fonseca was strangled by a young Brazilian man with whom she had previously been in a relationship after she went to his room in Cork for both of them to have face time by phone to Brazil with a pet dog to whom both of them were very attached.

The accused man later told gardaí that she began hitting him and that he tried to stop her hitting him by doing something he had seen on television.