The Russian girlfriend of a man whose body was found in a suitcase in the Royal Canal last summer has been jailed for two years by Judge Yvonne Murphy.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told that terrified Marina Sourovtzeva hired three Russians to teach her Romanian boyfriend Adrian Bestea a lesson.
Sourovtzeva says she was the victim of countless beatings at the hands of Adrian but couldn't report him to gardaí because she was an asylum seeker.
She sought help from friends who introduced her to three men who said they would evict him from her flat for a fee.
Sourovtzeva took the men to her flat on Strand Road in Sandymount where they beat Mr Bestea for four-and-half hours before one of them hit him on the back of the head with a wheel brace. This blow was the one that subsequently killed him.
The following day he was crammed into a suitcase and Sourovtzeva and two of the men transported it on the No 3 bus to Drumcondra where they dumped it into the Royal Canal.
Children playing on the banks of the canal located the suitcase 10 days after Mr Bestea’s death.
Sourovtzeva (31), of Strand Road, Sandymount, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault causing harm to 21-year-old Mr Bestea at the flat on Strand Road on July 8th, 2001.
Judge Yvonne Murphy said that the circumstances leading to the sad and brutal murder of Mr Bestea had been fully outlined to her but accepted that Sourovtzeva never meant to have him killed.
"The accused felt powerless to stop the situation getting out of control and I am fully satisfied that it was never her intention to have Mr Bestea killed," she said.
"Nevertheless the crime of false imprisonment is a very serious one and I feel that the most appropriate sentence would be one of three years but I will take into account that she will have to serve the sentence outside of her native country and impose a term of two years," she concluded.