Two men have been jailed for four and three years respectively for their roles in the death of a man whose body was found in a derelict shed behind Dublin Airport in 1999.
Joseph Zambra (28), Inagh Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin, and Kevin McCarron (51), Doyle's Lane, Arklow, Co Wicklow, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning Mr Noel Heffernan (35), Ballyfermot Road, on August 5th, 1999, at Kingstown, St Margaret's.
They also pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Mr Heffernan on the same date. Zambra additionally pleaded guilty to stealing Mr Heffernan's vegetable delivery van and McCarron to allowing himself to be carried in the vehicle on the same occasion.
Judge Joseph Matthews sentenced Zambra to four years and McCarron to three years for the false imprisonment. He jailed Zambra for three years for assault causing harm to Mr Heffernan and McCarron to two years for the same charge while Zambra received 12 months for stealing the van and McCarron nine months for allowing himself to be carried in it.
Judge Matthews said the sentences are to run concurrently as the crimes were inter-linked and were elements of the same offence.
He said that when Zambra and Heffernan became involved in the crime which culminated in the death of Mr Heffernan, neither man was aware that he was going to be killed by now-deceased Dublin criminal Anthony Dempsey.
They were under the impression he was going to "get a bit of hiding" for being allegedly involved in child molestation. Judge Matthews noted that, as pointed out by Det Sgt Kieran Holohan, there was no basis for such allegations against Mr Heffernan.
Judge Matthew, as well as Mr Michael O'Higgins SC, for McCarron, and Mr Niall Durnin SC, for Zambra, and Mr John O'Kelly SC, for the State, all noted the presence of Mr Heffernan's family during a four-week trial this July and during the sentence hearing, and expressed their sympathy to the family.