A DUBLIN man has been jailed for life after a jury at the Central Criminal Court found him guilty of murdering another man during hoax drugs deal in Walkinstown in December 2007.
He and another man pretended that they had hash for sale and then produced an imitation gun and demanded cash. A fight developed and the accused stabbed the victim.
After just under six hours of deliberations, the jury yesterday found Warren Graham (22) guilty of murdering Paul Keegan (42) in a laneway behind Cherryfield Road.
Several of the six men and six women on the jury broke down in tears and one juror had to leave the courtroom sobbing as the majority verdict of 10 to two was read out. Graham showed no reaction.
The jurors also unanimously found Graham, Shancastle Lawn, Clondalkin, guilty of having an imitation firearm with intention to cause robbery.
The firearm was a Mac II Ingram 6mm air gun, designed to look like a small Uzi sub-machine gun.
During the five-day trial, the jury heard that Graham admitted to gardaí he knifed Mr Keegan in the back, but he said he was acting in defence of his friend who was getting “the head boxed off him” by Mr Keegan.
“I panicked, I had the knife and I just stabbed him . . . I didn’t mean to kill him . . . I just wanted to get him off [my friend],” Graham said.
He said he only remembered stabbing Mr Keegan twice, but the jury heard he sustained four stab wounds, the deepest of which was 19cm.
His heart and spleen were punctured by the blade.
After Graham handed himself into Crumlin Garda station a week after the killing, he told gardaí he only became involved in the so- called drugs rip the night before it occurred, because he was in a lot of debt.
He said he was instructed by a third party to go to the lane behind Cherryfield Road in Walkinstown with his friend and pretend they had 50kg of hash in the boot of their car for two men – Mr Keegan and his friend Thomas Maher.
Graham and Mr Maher were given a carving knife and the imitation firearm and told to use them to intimidate the men and get the money for the drugs.
The planned operation went badly wrong, however, after Mr Maher ran from the scene once the weapons were produced.
Graham gave chase, while Mr Keegan tried to wrestle the firearm away from his friend.
Graham said he heard his friend scream for help and, after returning to the scene he saw the two men fighting and covered in blood.
His friend would not stop screaming “jab him, jab him”, he said.
“I took this to mean stab him, so I did. In the back,” he admitted to investigating detectives.
“I panicked, I had the knife and I just stabbed him . . . I didn’t mean to kill him . . . I just wanted to get him off [my friend].” He said Mr Keegan screamed and fell to the ground after he stabbed him “one last time” and then he and his friend “tore off” and fled the scene.
When he found out afterwards that Mr Keegan had died, he said he felt like crying.
The prosecution had argued that Graham was guilty of murder because the force he used was “grossly disproportionate” and his main intention had been to escape, not rescue his friend.
Úna Ní Raifertaigh, prosecuting, told the jury that Graham could not claim defence of his friend, because Mr Keegan was “not presenting such a risk as to make it necessary to stick a knife in him four times”.
Isobel Kennedy, defending, had argued that Graham believed it was necessary to do what he did, faced as he was with an “extremely large” man.