Friends of a young Albanian woman who was murdered in Sligo last year said she had been upset in a nightclub in the town hours before she was strangled.
The friends who saw Ms Lindita Kukaj crying in Toffs nightclub said she had been with two men.
One friend said Ms Kukaj was crying because she missed her home, but another witness who has since joined the Garda Síochána, said Ms Kukaj was crying because of "boyfriend trouble".
Mr Eduart Kulici (26), from Albania, with an address at The Maltings, Bonham Street, Dublin, denies murdering Ms Kukaj at her flat on Wolfe Tone Street, Sligo, on February 22nd, 2003. Mr Peter Finlay SC, defending, accused Garda Kenneth Gallagher of colouring his evidence to suggest that Ms Kukaj had been having a dispute that night with Mr Kulici.
Garda Gallagher, who at the time was a doorman in the Equinox nightclub in Sligo where Ms Kukaj also worked, said she had been "bawling crying".
He said it was boyfriend trouble and it seemed to be about nobody he knew, so he believed it was to do with some boy who was visiting.
Garda Gallagher told the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Sligo, that he had not met the two men who were with Ms Kukaj on the night. Mr Finlay suggested that he was making up a version, "peppering it" to suggest a dispute with Mr Kulici.
Ms Mary Norton, a friend of Ms Kukaj, told Ms Una McGurk SC, prosecuting, that she was manager of the Sasha boutique in Sligo and she also worked in the Equinox nightclub with Ms Kukaj, who was known in Sligo as Linda. On the night of the murder, she met her in Toffs nightclub with two foreign-looking men.
Towards the end of the night Ms Kukaj had been upset and was crying. Ms Norton told Mr Finlay that she got the impression she was upset because she missed home. She said she had known her for about three years. Garda Gallagher told the court that he had worked as a doorman in Equinox and was a friend of Ms Kukaj. He met her in Toffs on the night of the murder.
She was upset and he had sat down to talk to her. He had given her a hug and she said: "Why can't I meet a nice man like you?"
Taxi-driver Mr Donal O'Brien said he had driven Ms Kukaj and two men home from the club that night. Throughout the journey Ms Kukaj had argued with one of the men who was in the front while she and the other man sat in the back. The jury has already been told that Mr Kulici and Ms Kukaj were arguing in the taxi.
The trial continues today.