A WOMAN has told a manslaughter trial her boyfriend was dragged from his car by two men after he was kicked once in the head and face and the windows in the vehicle were smashed in.
Jelena Sirokova told Michael Durack SC, prosecuting, that she managed to get out the passenger door of the car after Valeri Ranert was pulled out on to the road. The couple had been parked in a lay-by near Dublin airport.
She ran into some long grass and watched as two men continued to kick Mr Ranert for about two minutes before they got into the victim’s Volkswagen Golf and fled the scene.
Paul Gibbons (27), of Moatview Drive, Priorswood, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to unlawfully killing Mr Ranert (27), at Naul Road, Swords, on April 30th, 2007.
He has also pleaded not guilty to unlawfully seizing by force the Golf belonging to Mr Ranert on the same occasion.
Mr Gibbons is alleged to be the driver of a car that arrived at the lay-by near the airport.
Mr Durack had earlier told the jury that it is not the State’s case that Mr Gibbons had got out of the car or that he was involved in the assault, but that this was a “joint enterprise” in which a number of people were “in it to do the same thing together”.
Mr Gibbons told gardaí in an interview that he was not “going down for murder”. “I know they are up to their neck in it and I am not going down for something I did not do,” he said.
The trial continues.