THE COURT of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment on an appeal by a Dublin man against his conviction for the murder of a Chinese student who died after he was stabbed during a robbery.
Derek Wade, Church Avenue, Rialto, Dublin, was convicted in March 2007 of the murder of Zhi Song (23) at Mr Song’s residence, on Reuben Avenue, off South Circular Road, in the early hours of June 29th, 2005.
The trial was told Mr Song died as a result of being stabbed with a chef’s carving knife.
Wade was also convicted of attempting to rob Mr Song’s girlfriend, Xiau Wen Zhou, of her purse on the same occasion. He was given a mandatory life sentence by Mr Justice Barry White, who also imposed a concurrent five-year sentence for the attempted robbery.
Wade had denied the charges.
The three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday heard Wade’s appeal against his conviction, after which Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Daniel Herbert, said the court was reserving judgment.
It was unlikely the Court of Criminal Appeal would be able to give its decision until after the new legal term begins in October, she added.
Earlier, moving the appeal, Michael O’Higgins SC, for Wade, argued his client’s conviction was unsafe on a number of grounds.
He said fingerprints taken from Wade in 1999, while he was detained in Mountjoy Prison on another matter, were compared with fingerprints obtained by the Garda during the course of the investigation into Mr Song’s death.
Mr O’Higgins argued that the prints taken in 1999 were used by the Garda to obtain a warrant on which his client was arrested and this use of fingerprints taken nine years earlier was unconstitutional and unlawful.
His client’s fingerprints were taken in 1999 for the purpose of issues concerning “the governance of prisons” and could not be given to a third party for another use.
From that point on, the process against Wade was “tainted” and the taking of new fingerprints from Wade after his arrest in connection with Mr Song’s death did not remedy the situation, he said.
Opposing the appeal, Deirdre Murphy SC, for the DPP, said the State was entitled to use the 1999 fingerprints, which were lawfully taken, as part of their investigation into Mr Song’s murder.
Mr O’Higgins’s argument in that regard was “fundamentally misconceived”, she said.