A Central Criminal Court jury in the trial of an internet and call shop owner accused of murdering a customer have been sent home for the evening after they failed to reach a verdict.
Zhen Dong Zhao (36), a Chinese man with an address at Jervis Street in Dublin had pleaded not guilty to murdering the 40-year-old man on May 20th, 1011.
However, he admitted kicking the 40-year-old a number of times outside his shop, E-times, on Dublin’s Wellington Quay after the man did not pay for a 70 cent phone call.
Dubliner Noel Fegan was originally from Finglas, but the reformed drug addict had been living in Aughrim Street in the city. The father-of-two had gone into the shop to phone his daughter from whom he had received a 'call me’ text.
The jury of eight men and four women spent one hour and 57 minutes deliberating following a 10-day trial before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy sent them home for the evening and asked them to return in the morning to continue their deliberations.