A MAN has been found guilty of the manslaughter of his flatmate after an argument about a light being left on.
Josef Szabo (51), a landscape gardener, Rathlin House, Waterville, Blanchardstown, a Slovakian, was charged with murdering Robert Kwiatkowski from Poland, on April 20th, 2007, at their apartment in Rathlin House.
He pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court.
The other two occupants of the two-bedroom apartment, Eve Kocokova and Ladislav Nemecheck, a Slovakian couple, were the main prosecution witnesses. They said they did not see Szabo kill Mr Kwiatkowski, but that he slammed the door on the victim’s hand not long before they found him collapsed in the hallway.
Ms Kocokova and Mr Nemecheck said they used the bedroom with the ensuite bathroom. Szabo had the second bedroom, in which he also cooked, and Mr Kwiatkowski slept on the couch.
Ms Kocokova said Szabo was in his bedroom when she left her partner and Mr Kwiatkowski in the dining room that evening to get her coat. She noticed the light on in the bathroom that Szabo and Mr Kwiatkowski shared.
She said she told Mr Kwiatkowski, and that he knocked on the bathroom door, but there was no one there. She said she heard him go to Szabo’s room and ask why the light was on and then heard them arguing.
“Robert came back to the dining room after a while and showed that his hand was injured by Josef closing the door to his face,” she said through an interpreter.
She said Mr Kwiatkowski returned to Szabo’s bedroom and showed him his hand and they argued again.
“We heard a noise when Josef threw Robert out of his room, something banged,” she said.
They ran out to the hall and saw Mr Kwiatkowski lying face down on the floor. She said he was going blue and there was blood coming from his mouth.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis said Mr Kwiatkowski died of a single stab wound to the chest, which punctured his heart, one of his lungs and an artery. Dr Curtis said he had no typical defensive injuries but had a bruise to the nose and a hand injury consistent with it being trapped in a door. He described Mr Kwiatkowsk as being “grossly intoxicated” at the time.
Szabo told gardaí he was in his bedroom when Mr Kwiatkowski began pushing in the door. “I pushed back hard and it hit him,” he said. He said he had returned to his computer when he heard shouting. He opened his door and saw the victim lying down, vomiting. “Ladislav and I started first aid,” he said.
The jury reached a verdict of not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. The judge remanded Szabo in custody until January 18th for sentencing.