Harrowing details of the journey to Ireland undertaken by a young asylum seeker accused of murdering a Ukrainian teenager in Tusla accommodation last year were heard in Dublin District Court on Thursday.
The court is conducting an age inquiry, applied for by Tusla, regarding the Somali national, who is charged with the murder of Vadym Davydenko (17) in Donaghmede, Dublin, on October 15th last.
The agency no longer believes he is a child, despite having deemed him “presenting as a minor” last August.
The young person remains on remand in Oberstown Children Detention Campus awaiting trial.
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In court, accompanied by gardaí, he became upset as his barrister, Deirdre Lynch, read from Tusla’s eligibility assessment report.
He told the age assessor in August 2025 he had left Somalia in 2021 after Islamic terrorist group Al-Shabaab took his father and “tried to force him to join their army”.
She read, “They tortured him, threw large rocks on him”, and referenced visible scars on his face and arm.
“After one month he was released from prison and went home ... His paternal uncle dressed him as a woman and organised for him to leave Somalia.” They travelled on foot and by car to Libya, getting there in 2022.
“They were taken to a ransom place and he had to work and clean like a slave. There were many people there who had to work for their release. They got one meal a day. After eight months they were released ... They got to sea and got in a boat. The sea was very rough. The boat collapsed. Some people died as they drowned, including his uncle.”
He got back to shore and ended up imprisoned again. He was sexually assaulted and beaten so badly by police he was taken to hospital. Staff there “told him to escape if he could”. He met a group of Somalis who planned to get to Italy.
“They were in the boat two days and two nights. A big boat came and took them all to Italy.”
He landed in Lampedusa, Sicily, in February 2023; he was registered in Bologna in June 2023 and landed in Dover on a small boat in October 2023.
It was “the most extensive record of what he alleges is his passage from Somalia to Ireland”, said Lynch.
Det Sgt Mark Quill of Coolock Garda station, who is leading the investigation into Davydenko’s death, reiterated his “categoric” view that the young person was over 18 when he allegedly killed the Ukrainian.
He agreed this was partially based on a report from Dundee social work department to the UK Home Office that its age inquiry “concluded that [the young person’s] physical appearance ... would suggest he was significantly over 18 years old”.
However, Kelly Coyle, the social worker who conducted the Dundee assessment, told the court she had thought he looked “young, a teenager”, but assessed him as over 18.
Quill was “surprised” to hear Coyle had given evidence “that was never said by her”.
Coyle said she had conducted a “brief age inquiry” that had taken “about 30 minutes”, and not a full age assessment.
Towards the end of the inquiry’s second day it emerged a second, more recent age assessment had been conducted by Tusla which the agency was not putting before the court.
Judge Conor Fottrell described this as “an extraordinary” situation.
“This is a very serious decision that the court has been asked to make. Serious issues are arising from this. It is one of the most serious decisions this court will make ... In order to make that decision, all relevant information must be brought,” he said.
