A teen who admits stabbing but denies murdering an 18-year-old during a melee in a Dublin park told the deceased “you don’t know who stabbed you” before running away, a witness has told the Central Criminal Court.
The teenage witness, giving evidence by video link, told James Dwyer SC for the prosecution that there was “chaos” with “everyone just fighting each other” but the melee suddenly stopped when someone shouted “knife”.
He said he then saw the deceased Azzam Raguragui (18) running up a hill with the accused behind him holding a knife in his right hand.
He said Azzam slipped and fell on his back and the accused stood over him. Mr Raguragui tried to push the accused away with his legs, the witness said, adding: “He [the accused] hit him to the leg once and then he came down with a swinging motion towards his chest area with the knife.”
He said he had a vivid memory of the incident and dreams about it every night.
Following the fight he remembered one of the teenagers saying to the accused, “What the f*** are you doing?” before the accused, with the knife still in his hand, said to Mr Raguragui: “You don’t remember who stabbed you.” The witness said he thinks the accused then ran away.
The 17-year-old accused, who cannot be identified because he is a minor, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to the murder of Azzam Raguragui on May 10th, 2019 at Finsbury Park, Dundrum, Dublin 14.
Under crossexamination the witness told Michael Bowman SC that the fight broke out after someone, not the accused, punched Mr Raguragui during a conversation about a stolen bicycle.
A second teenage witness told Mr Dwyer that earlier on the same day Mr Raguragui approached two members of the other group looking for a bike that had allegedly been stolen. There was no aggression during that conversation, he said, and when the other group said they didn’t have the bike they went their separate ways.
The witness was with Mr Raguragui and others in Finsbury Park that evening at about 7.50pm when he saw members of the other group approaching. He said he presumed they were coming to return the bicycle “to resolve the situation”.
The witness remembered the accused asked who was looking for the bike and Mr Raguragui responded. Words were exchanged, but the witness felt the accused was not aggressive but was confrontational. He said that he told the other group, “if we get the bike back everything is grand. We go our separate ways.”
At this point the witness didn’t believe there would be any problem between the two groups and he was leaving the park on his bicycle when the fight broke out.
The witness ran towards it and was involved in the fight when he heard someone shout “knife” and everyone suddenly stopped. He said he left at that point, not knowing that his friend had been stabbed.
The trial continues in front of Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of six men and six women.