The Dublin city coroner is to ask the Garda to reinvestigate the death of a young prisoner after it emerged that he had died from strychnine poisoning.
Anthony Kelly (20), Snowdrop Walk, Darndale, died in the Mater hospital on May 31st, 2006. He had collapsed in St Patrick's Institution in what appeared to be a drugs overdose.
His inquest was opened at the Dublin City Coroner's Court yesterday but the coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, immediately raised concerns about the findings of the postmortem, which was conducted by State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy. "A serious issue has arisen in relation to the autopsy report," Dr Farrell said. "My concern is that the cause of death is given as strychnine poisoning and I am not at this moment in a position to say how this came about."
Strychnine is a very toxic, fast-acting poison and is most commonly used as a pesticide in products such as rat poison. It has sometimes been reported that drugs such as LSD, heroin and cocaine have been laced with strychnine but documented cases are very rare.
Dr Farrell said the Garda report into Mr Kelly's death found that there were no suspicious circumstances. This may well be the case, he said, but he would still have to ask the Garda to reinvestigate the matter.
Michael Finucane, solicitor for Mr Kelly's family, said he would have several questions to ask about the death, "given the extraordinary nature of the report".
Dr Farrell expressed his condolences to Mr Kelly's parents, Anthony snr and Trish Kelly. "I'm at a loss to explain at the moment what happened, I will make further inquiries," he told the couple. "I can't comment at the moment because I simply don't know how this came about."
The case was adjourned for mention on July 26th.
