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A teenager on trial accused of murder told Gardaí he was panicking and trying to break up a fight when he stabbed the 18-year-old deceased during a riot in a Dublin park, the Central Criminal Court has heard.
The 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be identified as a minor, said in a voluntary statement on a Garda station that the late Azzam Raguragui “started it all.”
He told gardaí that he did not know why he was carrying a knife and that he never intended to use it. He said the deceased ran up to him and took the first thing he could find in his pocket to “scare him [Azzam] off. “He added,” I didn’t mean to kill him at all. “
The defendant has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty of the murder of Azzam Raguragui on May 10, 2019 in Finsbury Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14. Detective Sergeant John White told prosecutor James Dwyer SC that the defendant made a statement volunteer in a garda. station one day after the death of Mr. Raguragui.
He agreed that the defendant told Gardaí that he does not smoke, drink or use drugs because he wants to keep fit for football. He detailed his movements on the afternoon of the stabbing, saying he ran into friends and went to Finsbury Park in Dundrum. When they arrived, he said, they could see a large group of “boys” at the other end of the park. He recognized some of them and greeted them.
“Everything was fine and friendly,” he said, but Raguragui said there was a problem with another of the defendant’s friends and that he wanted to “have a little talk” with him. When that friend arrived, the defendant told Gardaí, Azzam spoke to him and they walked away from the group together, but then two of Azzam’s friends came up and beat the defendant’s friend. He said three of them “jumped on him and started punching and kicking him and he fell to the ground.”
He added: “We ran to break it, but then they started on us. They were much bigger and stronger than us and we couldn’t stop them. “He said he was scared and tried to push the other group members away from his friends, but” it didn’t make sense due to their size.
After Azzam ran towards him, the defendant said he grabbed “the first thing I had in my jacket to hit him, which was a knife that was in my jacket from before.” He said he had no intention of using the knife, but hit Azzam with it and thought it “landed on his chest”. He hit him two or three times, he told Gardaí.
After the stabbing, he recalled that Azzam escaped while the accused ran after him “so that he would continue to flee since he was the leader.” In addition, he recalled that Azzam yelled at him: “Remember my face, remember my face.”
The defendant then ran away and said that when he looked back he could see blood on Azzam’s hands. He was scared, he said, and dropped the knife. He also told Gardaí that he, “was just trying to finish the fight like [his friend] he was being hit. We were all much smaller. I panicked thinking I would be next on the floor getting beaten up. “
He said he wanted to scare Azzam with the knife, but had no intention of using it. “Azzam started it all and then it was for me. I just panicked. “He told Gardaí that he had never used a knife on anyone before and that he did not know why he had brought it that day. And he added:” I did not want to hurt anyone. I was afraid that they would really hurt us. ” .
He said that he regretted what happened and that he regretted Mr. Raguragui’s family. Later she took Gardaí to where she had thrown the knife. Previously, the jury saw CCTV footage of the movements of the two groups of teens before and after the fight. Garda Detective Steven Dunican told Dwyer that he had condensed 100 hours of CCTV footage into a jury rig.
The trial continues before Judge Paul McDermott and a jury of six men and six women.
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