A chef, accused of murdering a 64-year-old man, whose dismembered body was found in the grounds of a derelict house in Cork city over three years ago, has denied killing him.
Ionut Cosmin Nicolescu, who is 30 years old, went on trial today at the Central Criminal Court in Cork, charged with the murder of Francis (Frankie) Dunne in Cork in December 2019.
In his opening statement, Senior Counsel Ray Boland for the Prosecution told jurors they would hear evidence that a local man looking for a lost cat in the gardens of Castlegreina House, a derelict house on the Boreenmanna Road, on 28 December 2019 came upon a body "hidden in a bush", naked except for socks, and without his head or arms.
He alerted gardaí who later found Mr Dunne's head and his clothes in refuse sacks nearby.
He said Mr Dunne was an alcoholic who was living nearby in a residential dry house, Clanmornin House, but was known to drink in the garden before returning there.
Mr Boland said the jury would hear evidence that the defendant, who is denying the murder of Mr Dunne, had been squatting in an upstairs room of the house.
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A Romanian national, he had been living in Ireland since 2006.
There would be evidence he said, from two friends on their way to the pub, who heard "things" as they passed the house, and from a man who saw a man with a grey hoodie standing near the house.
Mr Boland said the State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers would also give evidence that Mr Dunne died of neck compression with blunt force trauma to the head and that the post mortem examination found dismemberment of the arms and head occurred after death.
It would also be the State's case that on the night Frankie Dunne was killed, the accused allegedly stayed upstairs in the room where he was squatting, that he went to work as a chef at the Silver Key pub as usual the day after, before allegedly making his way to Romania via Northern Ireland.
Mr Boland said jurors will hear evidence that when interviewed by Romanian police, he told them that when he came back to the derelict house, he saw Frankie Dunne, whom he didn't know, on the ground and standing near him were two men, one with a machete and another with a knife.
He told the police that they threatened him and forced him to help with disposing of the body. He said one man cut off Mr Dunne's head and arms using a knife. He was told he said, to put the body and arms under the tree and the head and clothes in the bags.
Mr Boland said they would hear evidence that he was afraid of these people and that is why he did this.
"Obviously", Mr Boland said, "if that is what happened, he is innocent", but he said it is the State's case that these two men were phantoms, or, if they had existed, they had nothing to do with the case.
The trial before Mr Justice Paul McDermott is set to last for three weeks.
