Lithuanian man accused of Portadown murder insists he was acting in self-defence

Rolandas Kvederis, 49, who died in Kvederis, Portadown (PSNI)

A Lithuanian man accused of murdering a man in a Portadown flat has told a court that he was acting in self-defence.

Rolandas Kvederis, 49, died after sustaining seven stab wounds to his neck and lower back inside the property in Ranfurley Road last Thursday night.

Ruslanas Kovalkovas, 51, appeared in the dock of Lisburn Magistrates’ Court on Monday charged with his murder.

Kovalkovas, who was living at the Ranfurley Road apartment at the time of the incident, was denied bail and remanded in custody.

At the outset of the remand hearing, when asked whether he understood the charge he was facing, Kovalkovas – wearing a grey track suit – spoke through an interpreter to deny murder.

The incident happened at a property in Ranfurley Road in Portadown in Co Armagh (PA)

“I did not kill him, I was defending myself,” he told district judge Rosemary Watters.

The court also heard that Kovalkovas, who previously resided in France as well as Lithuania, is currently subject to immigration proceedings initiated by the Home Office.

Outlining the circumstances of the murder case, a PSNI detective sergeant told the court that another man who was in the flat on Thursday night raised the alarm, asking his daughter to phone the police on his behalf due to his poor command of English.

He reported that there had been a fight between two men in the property and one of them was dead.

When police and ambulance personnel attended the property, they found Mr Kvederis lying on a hall landing surrounded by blood.

The detective sergeant told the judge he had been subject to a “frenzied and brutal attack”. She said the tip of a knife had been found embedded in a bone in his neck.

I did not kill him, I was defending myself.

The court heard that the property was in the name of Mr Kvederis, but that he had not been living there for around a year as he was residing at another property due to bail conditions applying to him.

The detective told the court that Mr Kvederis had been subletting the property to Kovalkovas but had recently returned to the property and had asked the accused to move out.

The officer said in police interview Kovalkovas claimed that the incident was triggered when Mr Kvederis verbally abused him and ordered him to leave the flat before attacking him in the kitchen of the property with a knife.

Kovalkovas told detectives that during the ensuing physical altercation, he grabbed the knife and stabbed Mr Kvederis in self-defence.

The court heard that the accused told officers: “He came at me with a knife, I was defending myself.”

He also said during police interview: “I didn’t want to do this, it was automatic, I had no choice – maybe I’d be dead otherwise.”

A lawyer representing Kovalkovas later told the court that his client insists he would have been killed himself if he had not stopped Mr Kvederis.

“His case is ‘it was me or it was him’,” said the legal representative as he argued for bail to be granted.

The lawyer asked the officer to confirm that Mr Kvederis had a criminal record, and had been “violent to men, women and animals in the past”.

“I believe so,” the officer replied.

The lawyer said Kovalkovas could be facing years on remand in prison, with any future trial potentially not taking place until 2028 due to delays exacerbated by ongoing industrial action taken by barristers in Northern Ireland.

Judge Watters refused the bail application, citing concerns about the accused’s lack of a suitable bail address, the potential to commit further offences and the risk of him not turning up to trial.

During Monday’s remand hearing, the court was also told that the man who had asked his daughter to report the fight had initially been arrested by detectives but was later released unconditionally.

Kovalkovas was remanded in custody to appear before Craigavon Magistrates’ Court via videolink on April 24.