A Chinese former policeman denied yesterday he was provoked into picking a fight with two men who shouted racist abuse at him and his Vietnamese friend as they left a nightclub in Dublin city centre two years ago.
Mr Dong Wei (35) denied that he had retaliated by punching and kicking two assailants after they had called him and a friend "Chinese w**kers".
Mr Wei was describing the little he recalled of an assault which resulted in the death of his friend, Mr Ly Minh Luong, and damage to his own left eye.
He is a key prosecution witness in the murder trial of two doormen, Mr James Harmer (26), originally from Stafford, England, and Mr Noel O'Flaherty (33), of McCormack Gardens, Sutton, Co Dublin. They are pleading not guilty to the murder of Mr Ly Minh Luong (50) of Kilmartin Gardens, Tallaght, Co Dublin, at Fownes Street Upper, Temple Bar, Dublin, on August 19th, 2002.
The accused also deny a charge of assaulting Mr Wei, causing him serious harm on Fownes Street Upper in the early hours of August 16th, 2002.
Speaking through court interpreter Ms Crystal Li, Mr Wei said he could only identify his attackers as a "taller and a shorter man" because of the injury to his eye: "I could barely see anything. My face was covered in blood. I was hit and I landed on the ground. I tried to get up. I got a kick on my left chest, everything happened so fast," he said. "My left eye was injured. Until today my left eye still doesn't function as good as my right eye". He said he was bleeding from his "nose, mouth, my eye and my eyebrow".
Mr Luong, who was Vietnamese, was taken to St James's hospital, where he died from brain injury four days later.
Taxi-driver Mr Thomas Greenhalgh also testified yesterday that he saw a man lying down on the ground at Fownes Street Upper while he was driving in the area on August 16th, 2002.
He said he saw "a small Asian man and a tall European man up on the footpath". He told Mr Tom O'Connell SC, prosecuting: "The Asian man had a lot of blood on him."