One of two men picked out at an identity parade is the man accused of the double murder of two Chinese students in an apartment in Dublin, a jury has heard.
A neighbour of the student couple told a jury she had a "gut feeling" that the defendant was the man she saw outside the students' apartment moments after it exploded into flames. But she also agreed she found it difficult to distinguish one Chinese person from another and admitted that in a statement she said it was "because Chinese people all look the same".
Mr Yu Jie (25), who is also known as "Jack", with a previous address at McKee Avenue, Finglas, Dublin, denies the murder of Ms Liu Qing (19) in an apartment at Blackhall Square, off North King Street, Dublin, between 6 p.m. on March 12th, 2001, and 3 a.m. on March 14th, 2001.
Mr Yu also denies the murder of Mr Yue Feng (19) between 1 p.m. on March 12th and 3 a.m. on March 14th in the same place.
The prosecution alleges that Mr Yu strangled the couple and then returned to their apartment shortly before 1 a.m. on the morning of March 14th and set fire to it to conceal what he had done.
The prosecution claims the motive for the alleged killings was larceny and that the accused was acting alone.
A resident of the apartment block and neighbour of the student couple, Ms Una Murphy, told the Central Criminal Court trial that at around 12:55 a.m. on the morning of March 14th, 2001, she was standing in her sitting room when she heard an explosion in one of the other apartments. She opened the door and looked out. She saw a man standing outside Apartment 2, about 10 feet from her.
He was "Chinese or Japanese", about 20, of medium build and wore a baseball cap. He looked straight down at her. There was a rubbish bag nearby. She went back inside her apartment and told her friends it was just someone putting out rubbish.
Ms Murphy said she believed she had seen the man before among Chinese people who would come and go on the corridor from Apartment 2, but was not sure.
Ms Murphy agreed with counsel for the State, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, that on March 20th, 2001, she was asked to identify the man from a line-up of Chinese men wearing baseball caps at an identity parade in a Garda station.
"I said I thought it was either No 1 or No 9", she told the court. No 1 was slim and with the same kind of build as the man she had seen, she said. With No 9, "it was something about him that just clicked. It was when I looked at everyone and then looked at No 9, I just froze. I had a gut feeling it was him", she said. She now knew No 9 was the accused, Mr Yu Jie, she said.
Under cross-examination, Ms Murphy agreed with Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, defending, that she found it difficult to distinguish between Chinese people themselves and between Chinese and Japanese people.
She agreed that in her statement following the identity parade, she had said she was not sure whether it was No 1 or No 9, but that there was "something familiar" about No 9. The trial continues.