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The mother of a teenage boy who was stabbed to death during a riot in a Dublin park collapsed in the Central Criminal Court after hearing a witness describe her son’s final moments.
The witness told prosecutor James Dwyer SC that he ran towards his friend Azzam Raguragui after Raguragui was stabbed during the fight.
He said, “I was telling Azzam that I was going to make it and he was telling me that I was going to die.” At that moment the mother of the deceased began to scream and cry loudly in the back of the court.
Judge Paul McDermott asked the jury to leave and, when he later brought them back to court, told them that the deceased’s mother had become “extremely over-excited.” He said that cases of this type generate “real and understandable emotions especially for those who have suffered losses.”
The judge has explained that the court deals with matters in a clinical way, which although it is adequate, “brings its own effects and makes emotions soar.” He asked the jury to put emotion aside, saying that while that may seem “distant or cold,” his job is to consider and analyze the facts in a dispassionate way.
The 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be identified because he is a minor, pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty of the murder of 18-year-old Azzam Raguragui in Finsbury Park, Dundrum, Dublin, on May 10 of the year. past.
The court has heard that a fight broke out between two groups of teenagers after a dispute over a stolen bicycle. Mr. Raguragui suffered five stab wounds during the riot.
Earlier today, the jury heard from another teenager who was involved in the fight at Finsbury Park.
The witness said he was with Azzam and a group of friends in Dundrum. He said there had been a dispute with friends of the defendant over a stolen bicycle and later that night he was with his friends in Finsbury Park when the defendant and others approached.
The two groups talked for a time, but then Mr. Raguragui and a member of the other group walked away from the main group. They were talking privately, he said, when the other boy “hit” Mr. Raguragui on the forehead. The witness said that a fight broke out and in the middle of the fight he saw Mr. Raguragui on the ground trying to kick the accused while the accused stabbed Mr. Raguragui.
He added: “He couldn’t do much because he was being stabbed, but he was backing up on his back and kicking his legs.”
The fight ended suddenly and the witness ran to his friend and waited for an ambulance to arrive.
He said, “It’s like you’re in a dream that didn’t really happen.” After the ambulance had left, he went to a local mosque, believing that Azzam would recover and they would laugh at all of this later. When he learned that night that Azzam was dead, he was “shocked.”
“None of us thought that Azzam was going to die,” he said. “When we got the news, I was shocked. I couldn’t accept it. I didn’t want to accept it.”
During questioning, the witness denied a suggestion by Michael Bowman SC for the defense that he and his friends at the mosque agreed to say that the first blow was launched by a member of the defendant’s group.
He insisted that the fight broke out after Azzam was hit.
The trial continues before Judge McDermott and a jury of six men and six women.
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