The complex and sinister background to the murder of mother-of-two Baiba Saulite has been emerging all week, writes Conor Lally, Crime Correspondent
The cold winter breeze buffeted the young mothers pushing their wrapped-up toddlers in buggies. "It is a shock, terrible," said one eastern European twentysomething as she and her son looked on.
Less than 12 hours earlier, a burst of gunfire had ended the life of Latvian mother-of-two Baiba Saulite (28) at her home in the Holywell estate, Swords, Co Dublin.
As she lay dead in a pool of blood in the hallway of her rented house on Monday morning, members of the Garda Technical Bureau were dusting for fingerprints on vehicles outside the house. Other forensics experts, clad in white boiler suits, were taking measurements and photographing the scene. Any piece of evidence, no matter how small or seemingly innocuous, was recorded.
The State Pathologist, Prof Marie Cassidy, came and went. She carried out a preliminary examination before the dead woman's body was taken away, in a black body bag, for a full post-mortem.
As the week went on, the complex and sinister background to this case began to emerge.
Baiba Saulite had come to Ireland searching for happiness and prosperity. She is leaving in a coffin. The path her life took in the six years between those two stages was a difficult one.
Friends this week described a warm and outgoing woman who was devoted to her two young sons. She worked part-time as a cleaner to supplement her social welfare. She prayed at the Lutheran church on Adelaide Road, Dublin 2.
From the city of Riga, she had travelled here with her Latvian boyfriend. Like most of the estimated 50,000 Latvians now in Ireland, they had no particular reason to leave their homeland other than to seek out new, greener pastures. Their relationship didn't survive the move and Baiba found herself single in Ireland.
She began dating a Lebanese immigrant, Hassan Hassan, who had moved to Ireland 20 years ago. They fell in love, married and had two children: Ali-Alexsandra, now aged five, and Mohamed Rami, aged three.
It was a difficult relationship founded on lies, according to Saulite's account. Hassan, now 38, told his then girlfriend he was Greek during the first two years of their relationship. She had expressed fears soon after meeting him that, as a Christian, she did not think marrying a Muslim was a wise decision. So he insisted he too was a Christian, of Greek origin. He neglected to mention he had once been married to an Irish woman.
At first they lived at Mount Andrew Rise in Lucan, Co Dublin. Soon after the birth of their first child, Hassan admitted to his wife he was Muslim.
LAST YEAR, AFTER her children were held by their father during a custody battle, she went on RTÉ Radio 1 and explained how her husband's behaviour had changed after the birth of their first child.
"When the children were born he started acting in an Islamic way," she said. "He told us what we could eat, what we can't eat, what I have to wear, what I have to do. He wouldn't let me go out and see my friends, nothing."
She said that Hassan insisted their children be raised in the Muslim tradition.
The relationship disintegrated and the ensuing custody battle became extremely acrimonious.
In December 2004 Hassan was to have the boys for a three-day visit. But when the period ended he failed to bring them back to her, sending them overseas to Lebanon instead.
She initiated legal proceedings against him to force her boys' return. But Hassan refused to comply with a Dublin District Court order to produce the boys. He was then imprisoned over the Christmas and New Year period.
When the first week in January 2005 came to a close, with no sign of her young boys, Baiba Saulite went on radio, thinking the children were still in Ireland, and appealed to the public to look out for them.
The children were eventually returned to her. But personal problems and anxiety continued to afflict her until she finally suffered a nervous breakdown.
Her relationship with Hassan became no more amicable. He made repeated threats against her and she feared for her safety.
In February 2004, a large team of gardaí from Dublin's Blanchardstown and the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation swooped on a warehouse at Colbinstown near Kilcullen, Co Kildare. They found about 20 top-of-the-range stolen vehicles, all of which were being stripped and prepared for export to eastern Europe.
Among the dismantled vehicles recovered were BMW, Mercedes and Fiat models as well as at least one Kawasaki motorcycle. The most expensive vehicle recovered was a €70,000 2004 BMW. The haul was valued at around €300,000.
Many of the cars had already been completely dismantled and packed into a container ready for export through Dublin Port. Other vehicles had simply been cut in half for shipment. Gardaí believed those behind the racket were armed, but no guns were found.
Four men from Lebanon and Syria were arrested, charged and later convicted. One of them was Hassan Hassan. He is currently serving four years in Mountjoy for his role in the scam, which gardaí believe saw cars totalling up to €3 million in value stolen and exported before the ring was smashed.
With her husband behind bars, and the custody battle drawing to a close, Baiba probably believed her life and those of her children would improve. But in February a chain of events began that clearly showed she had reason to be fearful.
The Dublin Circuit Criminal court heard yesterday that a male solicitor, who represented Saulite in the custody case, had been receiving threats "for quite some time" and was in "honest fear for his life".
The solicitor's house was the subject of an arson attack last February, Sgt Liam Hughes told Judge White during a bail application by Hassan to look after his two children in the wake of their mother's death.
Sgt Hughes also said that Saulite had contacted gardaí last Tuesday week and was in fear for the safety of her solicitor and for gardaí involved in the abduction case.Judge White refused the bail application.
Gardaí say that because of Baiba's links to the solicitor she too was given security advice. However, they insist there was no direct threat against her life. Because of this, patrols were not stepped up around her.
WHEN HER CAR was petrol-bombed last month her landlord asked her to move out. She decided to take a two-bedroom townhouse in Holywell Square, Feltrim Road, Swords, Co Dublin.
Last Sunday night she stood in the hallway of that house with two friends, smoking a cigarette. A man walked up to the door just before 10pm. He produced a handgun and shot her twice at point-black range. She fell back into the hall and died as her sons slept upstairs.
The murderer fled in a black BMW driven by an accomplice. It was later found burned out in the nearby Birchdale estate.
The identity of the person who pulled the trigger is unknown, but gardaí believe it could be a foreign national or a member of one of Limerick's crime gangs.
Hassan has been interviewed by gardaí in prison to see if he knew of any person who would want to harm his estranged wife.
Gardaí say that since her killing they have learned Baiba had expressed concerns for her safety to friends and neighbours. An internal Garda inquiry is underway into the manner in which the threat to Saulite was treated in the months and weeks before her death. Gardaí insist they did not abandon her while offering protection to her Irish solicitor.
But two people who find themselves alone now are Baiba's sons. Rami and Ali are in the care of the State. Their father will stay in prison until 2009. Their loving mother is to be buried in Riga. An immigrant's tale ended with bullets and a body bag.