A 29-YEAR-OLD Polish man yesterday denied murdering his partner’s husband, also a member of Tralee’s Polish community, during a row after a First Holy Communion party in the town last year.
At the Central Criminal Court in Tralee, Michal Kurowski of Old Gallows Field, Tralee, pleaded not guilty to the murder of Michal Skotak at Racecourse Lawn, Tralee, on May 16th, 2009.
Prosecuting counsel Paul Greene said the incident involved Polish people living in Tralee. Witnesses would include the deceased’s wife, Anna, now the accused’s partner. Mr Greene said Michal Skotak was living at Racecourse Lawn with his two adopted children. His sister had died tragically, and the children had come to live with him. He came to Ireland to work in 2005. His wife Anna followed in 2007 with their own two children.
In 2009, the couple separated.Anna Skotak had begun a relationship with the accused and went to live with him and her children at Old Gallows Field, Tralee, he outlined. On May 16th, one of her husband’s adopted children made his First Communion, and there was a party afterwards.
Anna did not attend, but her children did. Michal Kurowski drove her to Racecourse Lawn to pick up the children. As they were leaving, the deceased came out of the house in an angry mood. Anna and one of the children got into Mr Kurowski’s car, and Mr Skotak broke the rear passenger-side window, the court heard.
The accused got out and a fight ensued. “One of the two people was armed with a knife, and that was the accused man. He stabbed the late Michal Skotak three times in and around the chest area,” Mr Greene said. Mr Skotak died later in Kerry General Hospital.
Defence counsel Seán Gillane said the defendant admitted facts including that the deceased died from haemorrhage and shock due to stab wounds.
Speaking through a translator, and called by the prosecution, Anna Skotak said she moved out of Racecourse Lawn in April 2009. Her marriage broke up when her husband began drinking heavily after his sister’s death. On May 16th, when she called after the party, her husband was very angry. He had been drinking and he followed her from the house, picked up a block and said he would kill her. She asked him to stop and got into the back seat of her partner’s car, she told Mr Greene. Then pieces of glass fell on herself and the younger child.
Her partner was in the driver’s seat. He asked whether she and her child were okay. He got out, and she saw the two men push each other. There was a lot of blood. She saw a knife on the ground and recognised it as her partner’s. “He uses it at work or in the car and I’d know why he could have it with him,” she said.
She met Mr Kurowski at the Aman factory in Tralee where they worked in 2008. A relationship developed. When she told her late husband he was extremely angry, she said under cross-examination. “He threatened me that I cannot leave him because if I leave him something very bad will happen to my partner.” The case before Mr Justice Paul Carney continues.