The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment on an appeal by a father against his conviction for the murder of his baby son.
The appeal centred on the admissibility at trial of opinion evidence from a consultant psychiatrist to the effect that Yusif Ali Abdi was not legally insane at the time of the murder on April 17th, 2001, of his 20-month-old son, Nathan Baraka Andrew Ali, at his home in Co Kildare.
The child was born to Abdi and his wife, Ms Amanda Bailey, of Dundrum, Dublin.
At the conclusion of the appeal hearing today, Mr Justice Hardiman, with Mr Justice Murphy and Mr Justice Herbert, said there were "features of novelty" in the appeal and the court would reserve its decision.
During his two-week trial, Abdi (31), a refugee from Somalia with an address at The Elms, Collge Road, Clane, Co Kildare, had denied murder and told the jury that, in the moments of the killing, he was "a zombie" and "like a man possessed" and was responding to "voices" in his head that directed him to "hit him, hit him".
Two consultant psychiatrists called by the defence told the trial they believed Abdi was schizophrenic at the time of the killing and that his reason was impaired by a disease of the mind.
However, Dr Damien Mohan, a consultant psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital (CMH), disagreed and expressed his belief that Abdi was legally sane at the time.
At the time of the trial in May 2003, the jury was told Abdi had been in the CMH for the previous two years and had been on prescriptions of anti-psychotic and anti-schizophrenia drugs.
The jury then had returned a 10-to-two majority guilty verdict.
Presenting the appeal, Mr Tom O'Connell SC, for Abdi, argued that the trial court should not have admitted evidence from Dr Mohan as to the latter's belief regarding Abdi's motive for killing his son.
He also objected to how that opinion evidence was treated by the trial judge in his charge. Mr O'Connell said there had been an earlier trial of Abdi where the jury disagreed on the verdict. In that first trial, Dr Mohan had refrained from giving the opinion evidence that was heard at the second trial.
In the second trial, Dr Mohan had spoken about inconcistencies in Abdi's evidence and also said he did not believe Abdi had heard voices.
The motivation of an accused was a matter to be exclusively inferred from facts adduced in evidence before the jury, counsel said, adding Dr Mohan was expressing an opinion on facts that may or may not be proven.
It was not within his expertise to express an opinion on motive and that opinion was not supported by the facts of the case. The defence was also not on notice that Dr Mohan would give such evidence, the court was told.
Opposing the appeal, Mr John Aylmer SC, for the DPP, said it was within Dr Mohan's sphere of expertise to give his opinion on the motivation of Abdi. There was no issue as to the admissibility of psychiatric evidence where there was an issue of insanity.
Both sides had called psychiatric evidence in the case.