The family of a young woman who was killed in a Dublin apartment have criticised the delay in returning her body to them for burial.
The body of Amanda Jenkins (27) was found in the Anna Livia apartments on Dublin's James's Street on October 9th. The postmortem found that she had been strangled. A man has been charged in connection with the death.
However, Ms Jenkins's body remains in the Dublin City Morgue in Marino pending a second, independent postmortem being conducted at the request of the defence legal team.
Ms Jenkins's uncle, Robert McClean, said the family had been told that the body would not be released until next Friday at the earliest.
"We can't begin to grieve properly until we have Amanda home," he said.
Mr McClean praised the support of the Garda Síochána in the case but said family members had been put in a very upsetting situation.
A spokesman for the Coroner's Society of Ireland said that the European Convention of Human Rights provided for the right to seek an independent postmortem if a person is charged in relation to a death. In homicide cases, the State holds the body for five days to give time for a party to seek this postmortem.
However, because there is such a small number of forensic pathologists in this State and most of them have worked for the State at some point, independent postmortems are usually conducted by someone from outside the jurisdiction.
