Trial dates for four murder and two rape cases were fixed from March 10th-21st at the Central Criminal Court yesterday. Mr Justice Carney also fixed a Kildare murder case with 143 prosecution witnesses for June 3rd. Defence counsel Mr Patrick MacEntee SC said the trial could take six weeks.
A provisional trial date of March 3rd was also assigned to a 10 witness rape case from Wexford. Registrar Mr Paddy Morrissey told the court three judges would be available to the court in March.
At a previous sitting, four murder and seven rape trials were assigned hearings on dates from February 10th to March 3rd. Two other rape cases were also given provisional trial dates for that period.
Of the 32 cases before the court yesterday, the remaining 24, involving 15 rape, one sex assault and eight murder cases, which not given trial dates were adjourned to the next listing session on March 13th.
A number of the murder cases with between 40 and 90 prosecution witnesses could not be accommodated during the short session in March.