A 24-year-old Kildare resident who told gardai he was “so drunk” that he couldn’t remember fatally stabbing his sister’s partner once in the chest with a kitchen knife following a dispute has been found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter by a Central Criminal Court jury.
The panel of eight men and four women unanimously rejected the prosecution case that Valeriu Melnic was guilty of murder, despite evidence he had told Ion Daghi “I will kill you” when the deceased had tried to calm him down.
The State had submitted this was the “clearest statement of intent” that the jury were likely to encounter.
Moldovan national Melnic, with an address at Calliaghstown Lower, Rathcoole, Co Dublin had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Daghi (39) at The Close, Sallins Park, Sallins in Co Kildare on May 12, 2024.
In seeking a verdict of manslaughter for his client, Brendan Grehan SC, defending, told the jurors in his closing address that the issue of intoxication was “all over” the case and that the consumption of three bottles of “firewater” had an effect on everyone that night.
Counsel submitted that whiskey can have a remarkable transformation on people’s moods and how they behave.
Melnic told gardai in his interviews that he couldn’t remember stabbing his sister’s partner with the knife as he was so drunk but later said that “all the evidence pointed” to him being “the only one responsible”.
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Mr Grehan also argued in his closing speech that if everybody who said the words ‘I will kill you’ in a fight were guilty of murder, the State wouldn’t be able to build prisons fast enough. “People say things not meaning them,” he submitted. Whereas, Carl Hanahoe SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, submitted in his closing address that Mr Daghi had entered his kitchen when a struggle pursued between the defendant and his sister. “It wasn’t the entry of a bull or a bear, it was a man entering saying ‘calm down, calm down'”.
The defence had asked for a verdict of manslaughter on the basis of intoxication or the partial defence of provocation, which can reduce an intentional killing from murder to manslaughter. Mr Grehan said there wasn’t any doubt but that a provocative act had occurred to his client, who he said was “badly beaten” and had reacted to that. He said the defendant had picked up a knife in the heat of the moment, where passions did not have time to cool. “Provocation is a reaction to something that causes you to boil over; and boil over he did and cause the death of the deceased”.
Curiously, the lawyer submitted that Melnic did not recall being hit over the head by the deceased with the leg of a chair and the only thing he could remember was Mr Daghi having his hands around his neck trying to strangle him. He said nine hours after the defendant’s arrest, scrape marks or finger marks were found on Melnic’s neck.
The jury had the option of returning two verdicts in relation to the murder charge against Melnic, namely; guilty of murder or not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. The 12 jurors took six hours and 27 minutes over three days to reject the State’s contention that the defences of provocation and intoxication were not open to Melnic.Following today’s unanimous verdict, presiding judge Mr Justice David Keane told the panel that jury service is one of the most important duties that an individual can be asked to perform as an Irish citizen.
He said they had “very properly discharged” their civic duty at the cost of some disruption to their family lives and working lives. The judge said the graphic nature of the evidence which the jurors had to deal with during the trial had made their service “particularly challenging and difficult”. He thanked them for their service and exempted them from further jury duty for the next ten years.
A sentence hearing for Melnic is expected to take place on November 3 and the judge remanded the defendant in custody until that date. The case was listed for mention on October 20.
On November 3, the Daghi family will have an opportunity to make a statement to the court about the impact Ion’s death has had on their lives.
The judge also directed a probation and a governor’s report on the defendant.
The trial heard that on the evening in question, Melnic met up with a friend and proceeded to Mr Daghi’s house, arriving at 8pm.There were a number of people present in the house and they had some food in the garden, drank a bottle of whiskey and proceeded to a pub where a second bottle of whiskey was purchased and consumed back at the house. The group then went to a nightclub where they bought a third bottle of whiskey.
Some time around 3am, a dispute arose between Melnic and Mr Daghi.
Witness Alexandru Beccieu (24) said both he and Mr Daghi were trying to calm Melnic down but the defendant was “very drunk”.The witness said he went in between his friends to pull them apart when they started throwing punches at each other.
Mr Beccieu said the defendant tried to hit him and was successful on the second occasion. He said Mr Daghi then got in between them and separated them.Mr Baccieu went to look for the defendant’s car keys, because Melnic wasn’t calming down after Mr Daghi told him to go home.
When the witness came back, he said the defendant was “down” or on the ground with his hands on his head “trying to ward something off” and that Mr Daghi had a piece of a chair in his hand. A woman took Melnic into the house and Mr Baccieu and Mr Daghi stayed outside smoking a cigarette. The witness said Mr Daghi looked in the window of the house and saw Melnic and his sister pulling at each other. He said Mr Daghi went into the kitchen to see what was happening and came out seconds later.
The witness continued: “Mr Daghi said he cut and fell down in front of me.”Under cross-examination, Mr Beccieu agreed with Mr Grehan that Melnic must have had “a colossal amount” of the whiskey as the deceased didn’t have a lot of alcohol in his system.A pathologist told the jury that Mr Daghi died from a single stab wound to the chest, which measured 13cm in depth, and death would have been very rapid. 73 milligrams of ethanol was detected in the deceased’s system, which is just over 2.5 pints.
Referring to the law of intoxication in his charge, Mr Justice Keane had said it is not a complete defence to murder and is there if the defendant’s mind was in such a state from the effects of alcohol that he had not intended to kill or cause serious injury. He told the jurors if they had a doubt about that, then the verdict should be not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter.
Having been arrested on suspicion of assault causing harm to Mr Daghi in the early hours of May 12, Melnic was deemed unfit for interview and was not questioned until 15 hours later.
He told interviewing officers at Naas Garda Station that he and the deceased had been drunk and at some point an argument started.
“A lot of drink was taken, my memory is very hazy,” added the defendant. Melnic’s sister, Angelina Spinu, had agreed that her evidence to a jury, where she had “painted a picture” of her own partner Mr Daghi “as the aggressor” in the altercation and holding a weapon, was “the complete opposite” to what was said in her garda statement.
In her direct evidence at the Central Criminal Court, Ms Spinu denied to the prosecutor via a Romanian interpreter that she was trying to protect her brother.
The jury had heard that Ms Spinu told gardai in her statement that her “kid brother” said to her husband “I will kill you” before he took a step forward and “pushed” a knife into his chest.
