A MEMBER of "a gang of bandits" has been jailed for 10 years by Judge Tony Hunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for stabbing a garda who came to the rescue during an armed robbery of Chinese nationals in a suburban house.
Zheng Xu (31), of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to seriously wounding Garda David Comer on July 13th, 2005 when he and three other masked raiders held the occupants of a Main Street, Raheny, house at knife-point, demanding their mobile phones and bank card Pin numbers.
Two co-accused, Xiang Cheng (25) and Qian Cheng, aka Jian Gong Ten (28), were already each jailed for seven years last July for assaulting Garda James Hendrick, aggravated burglary and the false imprisonment of three fellow-nationals the same night.
The Chengs had pleaded guilty to the aggravated burglary and false imprisonment charges but were convicted in April of assaulting Garda Hendrick by a jury which acquitted them of stabbing Garda Comer.
Both were illegally in the State after their applications for asylum failed and are due for deportation on their release.
Gardaí Hendrick and Comer said in evidence at the Chengs' trial that they thought they were going to be killed by a balaclava-masked man wielding a knife who repeatedly stabbed them after they foiled the Chinese gang who bound and held their fellow-nationals captive.
Judge Hunt described the raiders as a "gang of bandits who had devised a very significant plan that had involved considerable thought and premeditation" when he jailed the Chengs and told Xu it was "pure chance" that Garda Comer had survived the knife attack.
He described Garda Comer as a "fortunate man" and wished him luck in continuing his Garda duties in future "with full confidence."
Det Garda John Delany told Bernard Condon, prosecuting, that the two gardaí found a woman occupant who had escaped unnoticed from the house by the masked gang, running on the street after she had alerted the authorities.
Det Garda Delany said a masked man ran at Garda Comer when he entered the house and stabbed him three times in the back.
Garda Hendrick received a 2 cm stab across his chest from the same man. Judge Hunt suspended the final two years of Xu's sentence.