The mother of Eoghan and Ruairí Chada, Kathleen Chada has said she cannot forgive her husband for killing their children.
Sanjeev Chada (44) was sentenced to life imprisonment on Wednesday after admitting to what the Central Criminal Court heard was a crime fuelled entirely by mounting gambling debts.
In July last year, Chada drove his boys Eoghan (10) and Ruairí (5) to Co Mayo, where he strangled them before writing in a note: “I suppose we will always be together now in some way.”
When asked on RTÉ 1’s Late Late Show last night if she could ever forgive him, Ms Chada said: “You can’t, what he did to the boys will never ever... it’s not forgivable. He wasn’t insane, he was totally “with it”. He had a number of days to plan this.”
She added that the violent nature of their death meant he “does not deserve forgiveness”.
Ms Chada said she had not contacted him since the tragedy in July of last year but had spoken to him in court on the day he was sentenced.
“I wanted to see... was he a monster...but he was just himself, which is scary. He said he is sorry,” she said.
When asked whether she believed he was truly sorry for what he had done, she said:“I don’t know... it’s probably the most sincere sorry that he has made in the last 14 months, whether it was truly sincere, I don’t know.”
Ms Chada said that despite her strong Catholic faith, she cannot forgive him.
“I’ve been ensured that that’s OK. ‘Forgiveness is a gift’, is how it’s was described to me, and it’s God that forgives. If he forgives this, that’s up to him,” she said.
Ms Chada said she believes the boys are “still with her” and that she continues to feel their presence in her life.
“There’s a very strong sense of the boys. A light comes on in the bedroom occasionally, its probably faulty wiring but for me it’s the boys just checking in so we’ll have a bit of a chat and I’ll talk to them,” she said.
She said she feels “very lucky and blessed to have been their mother” and that all her memories with the boys are happy memories.