A man accused of murder pointed out the gun he used to shoot his life-long friend to gardai, a jury has heard.
The accused man allegedly told detectives that his friend asked him to kill him. According to Garda evidence, the accused told them this happened just hours before he carried it out. "I thought he was only joking", he said.
In the Central Criminal Court, Mr Paul McCarthy (37) of Chamber Court, Chamber Street, Dublin 8, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Martin Comerford (36) of Tom Kelly Road flats, Charlemont Street, Ranelagh, on April 26th, 1999.
Mr Comerford's body was found near the bottom of an unnamed laneway at the rear of Ontario Terrace, off Lower Mount Pleasant Avenue, Ranelagh, shortly after 8 a.m on Monday, April 26th, 1999.
He was due to go on trial in the Central Criminal Court later that day for the murder of Dubliner, Mr Anthony "Chester" Beatty. Mr Comerford had been shot in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun.
The jury has heard that Mr McCarthy told gardai he shot his friend at Mr Comerford's own request. He said Mr Comerford feared he would be convicted of Mr Beatty's murder.
Yesterday, the court heard that a piece of the wooden stock of a shotgun was found at the scene of the killing.
Det Garda John Higgins said the piece of wood fitted the stock of a sawn-off double barrel shotgun found in a sports holdall bag at the block of flats where Mr Comerford lived.
Det Garda Donal Regan said that when Mr McCarthy was in custody on May 12th, 1999, he said, "That's the bag the gun was in", when shown the holdall bag. He said, "That's the gun I used to shoot Martin", when shown the sawn-off shotgun.
The trial continues on Monday before Mr Justice Carney. As the hearing began yesterday, the judge asked the jury if it would have any difficulty in trying the case strictly and solely on the evidence it heard in court "and not on anything that emerges from the newsroom of the Evening Herald newspaper".
The jury expressed no difficulty with those terms.
The judge's comments followed an application from Mr Anthony Sammon SC, defending, about a headline on the front page of Thursday's Evening Herald, which he said misrepresented the case presented in court.
In a departure from the norm in criminal trials, the judge refused to hear the application in the absence of the jury. He said they were as much judges in the trial as he was.