A housemate of a man accused of double murder and of later setting fire to an apartment in Dublin in March 2001 has identified him in video footage outside the apartment on the date the couple were murdered.
Mr Yu Jie (25), McKee Avenue, Finglas, Dublin, denies the murder of Liu Qing (19) and Yue Feng (19) in an apartment at Blackhall Square, off North King Street, Dublin, between March 12th and March 14th, 2001.
Ms Liu Sha Sha, who paid rent for sharing a sitting room in the house in McKee Avenue with Mr Yu and another witness, Mr Liu Pin, identified him on a photograph taken from CCTV footage of the entrance hall to the apartment. The video still shows a man standing in the hallway outside the apartment at 17:51:42 on March 12th, 2001. The jury has heard that in interviews with gardaí, Mr Yu denied being in the apartment building at that time or date.
On the third day of the Central Criminal Court trial, Ms Liu told counsel for the DPP, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, that Mr Yu had asked her not to tell gardaí that he had a bicycle.
Ms Liu said that on March 13th, she and Mr Yu finished work in McDonald's of Phibsboro at about 12.30 a.m. She shared a taxi home while Mr Yu had a bicycle. He did not return home until about 1.30 a.m.
When she spoke to gardaí after the bodies of Yue Feng and Liu Qing were discovered, she told them she did not know if Mr Yu had a bicycle. Asked why she had not told them he had a bike, she replied: "Yu Jie said don't mention anything in relation to the bike."
Under cross-examination, Ms Liu agreed with Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, defending, that she, Mr Yu and Mr Liu Pin had gone to get a bicycle earlier on the evening of March 13th from a place in Buckingham Village. The bike's "owner" did not turn up, but they took one bicycle away with them.
Mr Liu Pin, who also shared the sitting room of the house in Finglas with Mr Yu and Ms Liu, said that on March 13th, Mr Yu did not turn up for work in a restaurant in Temple Bar where he had a second job as a dishwasher. The explanation was traffic.
Mr Liu told the court that Mr Yu had owed him money. On the night of March 12th, he paid him £120 rent that he did not owe.
The prosecution alleges that the motive Mr Yu had for allegedly killing his friends Yue Feng and Liu Qing was larceny.