A Ukrainian woman who survived the Moscow car crash in which former Fianna Fáil TD Liam Lawlor died may have to wait until tomorrow to begin her High Court action alleging libel in a Sunday World newspaper article.
A jury was empanelled to hear Julia Kushnir's case in the High Court yesterday but had to be discharged as another case went ahead before it. It is considered unlikely the Kushnir case will begin before tomorrow.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne had held the jury in the Kushnir case until noon yesterday but, when it became clear that another libel action against the Sunday World was to go ahead, she discharged the Kushnir jury.
Counsel for Ms Kushnir Paul O'Higgins SC asked that the case be kept in the list and said he had witnesses from far-flung places in court, including Prague and New York. The matter will be mentioned before the judge this morning.
Ms Kushnir did not enter the courtroom during the brief mention of the case.
A translator, she survived the car crash in Moscow in which Mr Lawlor died in October 2005. She has sued a number of newspapers as a result of the reporting of the event.