A Chinese national who was helping gardaí in a robbery investigation was told all his "worries would come true" if he did not drop charges against the robbers, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has heard.
On the first day of the trial of the man accused of making the threatening phone calls, the alleged victim Mr Yung Feng Hou (24) told Ms Una McGurk BL, prosecuting, he was distressed and terrified when he received the phone calls. Mr Hou told Ms McGurk that by "all his worries" the caller was referring to earlier threats made.
Mr Xiu Chun Wang (26), with a former address in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to intimidation and handling stolen property on March 7th, 2001.
Mr Hou told Ms McGurk that, a week before he received the alleged phone calls, seven Chinese nationals arrived at his rented address in Monkstown and had extracted an "IOU" note for €3,800 from him. They also took his passport and his Garda National Bureau of Immigration (GNBI) aliens card, as well as bank cards and PINs belonging to himself and his girlfriend. The note, which he was forced to sign and fingerprint, said his passport and GNBI card would be returned to him when he paid out the money within 10 days.
The group of one woman and six men had a tennis racket and a pole, which they used to threaten him. Mr Hou said one of the group used to live at the same address with him and his girlfriend when they arrived in Ireland in July 2001. He still had a key to the premises when he entered the house with the group.
Mr Hou said members of the group were also angry that his girlfriend, who had been alone in the flat when they arrived, had been "impolite" to them, and they wanted him to pay them for her rudeness as well.
The group left the house in two taxis after threatening they would be beaten up if he notified gardaí about the events.
Mr Hou, who addressed the court through an interpreter, said he was very frightened by the incident and called Dún Laoghaire Garda station. Seven days later he received about four or five phone calls from an anonymous caller, who told him that a woman had been arrested because of his allegations.
The caller told him he should not involve any "foreigners" or gardaí in the matter. If he did, the caller threatened, all his worries would come true. Mr Hou said he called Dún Laoghaire Garda station and informed them of the development.
Ms McGurk told the jury in her opening statement, it would hear that, on the day Mr Hou received the phone calls, Det Garda Fergus Twomey and a colleague who were involved in the investigation of the robbery came across Mr Wang by coincidence.
They were at a McDonald's in Dún Laoghaire when they observed a Chinese couple who were sitting in the restaurant but not eating anything. Det Garda Twomey asked the man for identification documents and, when he failed to produce them, Det Garda Twomey asked him to accompany him to Dún Laoghaire Garda station. A later search revealed that Mr Wang had Mr Hou's passport and GNBI card in his possession.
The hearing continues before Judge John O'Hagan.