THE KILLER of two men has told his murder trial that he stabbed them because one of them shouted at him and he thought they had stabbed his father.
Pawel Kalite (28) and Marius Szwajkos (27), both mechanics from Poland, died after being stabbed in their heads with a screwdriver outside their home on Benbulben Road, Drimnagh.
David Curran (19), Lissadel Green, Drimnagh, has pleaded not guilty to murdering them on February 23rd, 2008, but guilty to their manslaughter.
He yesterday described the Saturday he killed the two men.
“I went out about 10 o’clock that morning to the off-licence,” he told the Central Criminal Court. “I got a bottle of vodka and a few cans. I went to the canal, to the locks.”
He said he was joined there by two teenage girls, three boys and his co-accused, Seán Keogh (21), Vincent Street West, Inchicore. Mr Keogh has pleaded not guilty to the double murder.
“We were drinking the vodka, smoking hash and swimming,” he said of the next hour or two. “We had a few tablets, Roche D5s.” He said they then moved to a field at St Michael’s Estate.
“We were finishing off the few cans we bought with the vodka and smoking a few joints,” he continued, adding that they took “a few tablets, a mix between blueies and yellows”.
He and Mr Keogh then bought two bags of alco-pops before returning to the field, where they continued drinking, smoking hash and taking tablets.
He said he, Mr Keogh and one of the others returned to the locks at about 5pm. “I seen a bike. I went over and took it up to the field to drive it,” he said of a moped in which he found two bottles of wine and a screwdriver. “It wouldn’t start. The police came up and it got burnt.”
He added: “I got a phone call to tell me that my Dad got stabbed in the chest and to go to the chipper,” he said. “I was angry. I just ran to the chipper.”
His barrister, Giollaiosa Ó Lideadha, asked him whether all the drugs and alcohol had an effect on him. “Yeah, I was basically out of my head on it. I was stoned.” He said there were a few “young fellas” outside the Drimnagh takeaway as well as the two girls who were with him earlier. “I was roaring: ‘Who stabbed me Da?’.”
He attacked a car, but a teenager told him its occupants were not responsible. “I ran up the road because there were people screaming that they’re up there.
“There was a man and a woman at a gate and another man at the porch door in the same garden . . . I was screaming: ‘Was it youse?’ and the bald man was screaming back in his own language,” he said.
“The girl was trying to push him back from coming towards me, so I went towards him and stabbed him.” He said the second man came towards him. “He jumped over the railings. It made me go mad, so I stabbed him too as he was coming over the railings.”
The trial continues.