RACIST COMMENTS were shouted at two mechanics before they were stabbed in their heads with a screwdriver outside their home, a murder trial has heard.
Pawel Kalite (28) and Marius Szwajkos (27), both from Poland, sustained the fatal wounds to their brains on February 23rd, 2008, on Benbulben Road, Drimnagh.
David Curran (19) of Lissadel Green, Drimnagh, has pleaded not guilty to their murder but guilty to their manslaughter. Seán Keogh (21), of Vincent Street West, Inchicore, has pleaded not guilty to the double murder.
On the sixth day of the trial, the Central Criminal Court heard from Polish siblings Kamila and Radek Szeremeta, who were sharing a house with the victims and witnessed the killings.
Radek Szeremeta said he walked to the shop on their street at about 6.30pm that Saturday. “I saw Pawel, and two girls hitting him. I asked him is he OK. He didn’t say anything. He looked upset. I noticed a broken bottle of vodka on the footpath and Pawel had a big bump on his head.”
Kamila Szeremeta said: “I was standing with Pawel on the path in our garden and a group of teenagers were passing on the opposite side of the road and they started shouting, offending Polish people,” she recalled. “They said all Polish people are f***ers.”
John O’Kelly, prosecuting, asked whether she responded. “I did. I just asked why. Then they crossed the road . . .” she said. “One of the guys had a tool in his hand. When he attacked I was the first at the gate, so I was afraid I’d get hurt.”
She said he swung this tool towards her head, and she ducked. “I got pushed out of the gate by Pawel’s body as he was falling,” she recalled. “Mr Szwajkos fell to the ground and hit his head.”
Giolliaosa Ó Lideadha, defending David Curran, later said Ms Szeremeta picked his client out of the line-up, and that she told gardaí this took her one second.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Liam McKechnie and a jury of eight women and four men.