Court told how pair dismembered body

Linda Mulhall claimed it was her sister Charlotte's idea to dismember the body, but Charlotte, who initially denied her involvement…

Linda Mulhall claimed it was her sister Charlotte's idea to dismember the body, but Charlotte, who initially denied her involvement in the murder, said her mother had told the sisters to kill him and gave them the knife and hammer. She then ordered them to cut up the body.

Linda described to the court the scene in the bathroom of the flat as the pair set about sawing up the body. It took them up to five hours. Linda was in the shower while Charlotte sat on a toilet seat.

Charlotte said that after Farah Swaleh Noor died, the three women did not know what to do with him. She couldn't remember if they had rung anyone or not, and she told gardaí: "Me mammy said, 'Just cut him up'." She said she and her sister then cut up the body in the bathroom. "I just remember cutting . . . I cut him up with the knife." She said she used a kitchen knife while her sister had a hammer.

Linda said: "Charlotte started sawing his legs with the knife." She said it was a rugged blade and her younger sister became tired. "The smell was . . . it wouldn't go away. I think about it every night," she told gardaí.

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She said she had used a hammer to hit his legs a number of times and they had put towels over his legs to stop the blood from gushing out. She said they had taken turns doing both jobs. "It took us a few hours to do it."

Charlotte said she could not remember who cut off the victim's head and penis, both of which have never been found.

Linda said she had cut off the victim's penis, claiming he would not be able to rape their mother any more. She said she had thrown this in the canal along with the rest of the body.

Asked who cut off the head, she said: "I was cutting it first . . . the knife Charlotte had, she started to cut the neck and we took it in turns after we had a towel on it."

The separate body parts were put into black plastic bags and transported in sports bags down to the canal, then dumped.

Linda said she had carried the light bits, while Charlotte had taken the heavier ones. "We walked down to the canal a few times, it took a few times," she said.

She - or, according to Charlotte, their mother - decided not to throw the head in, so that Mr Noor would not be identified.

She said they had taken the head on a bus to Tallaght where they walked through the Square shopping centre to Tynan Park North. They walked around the park for a long time before Charlotte dug a hole with a knife in which to bury the head. She said her mother had thrown the knives and a hammer into some water nearby.

However, over the next few days, Linda said, something kept telling her to go back to the park. She said she removed the head and put it into a plastic bag, which she hid in bushes. She then used her son's schoolbag to transfer the head to another field in Tallaght where, she said, she "kissed the bag and told Farah I was sorry".

She said she stayed in the field for a long time, drinking a litre bottle of vodka. She hit the head with another hammer she had brought with her to try to break it up, and said a prayer before burning the plastic bag and the schoolbag.

Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtis said the flesh of the body appeared to have been cut through smoothly while the bones had been chipped through "somewhat clumsily" by repeated chipping with an axe or cleaver.

He said an examination of the body revealed 22 stab wounds and injuries to "pretty well all" internal organs.

He confirmed the man had died from stab wounds to the trunk.