The Russian girlfriend of a man whose body was found in a suitcase in the Royal Canal last summer, a case which mystified gardaí for weeks, has been jailed for two years.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told that terrified Marina Sourovtzeva hired three Russians to teach Romanian Adrian Bestea a lesson.
Sourovtzeva was the victim of countless beatings at the hands of her violent boyfriend 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 savagely beat Mr Bestea for 4½ hours before one of them hit him with a wheel brace. This blow subsequently killed him. The next 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 off Binn's Bridge into the Royal Canal.
Children playing 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 the circumstances leading to the murder of Mr Bestea had been fully outlined to her but she 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. "After her visa ran out she aligned herself with some undesirable people who would go out of their way to remain in the country illegally but it was her first offence, she is a young mother and does come from a very loving family.
"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.