The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment on a father's appeal against conviction for the murder of his baby son.
The appeal centred on the admissibility at trial of opinion evidence from a consultant psychiatrist to the effect that Yusif Ali Abdi was not legally insane at the time of the murder on April 17th, 2001, of his 20-month-old son, Nathan Baraka Andrew Ali.
At the conclusion of the appeal hearing yesterday, Mr Justice Hardiman, with Mr Justice Murphy and Mr Justice Herbert, said there were "features of novelty" in the appeal and the court would reserve its decision.
During his two-week trial, Abdi (31), a refugee from Somalia with an address in Clane, Co Kildare, had denied murder and told the jury that, in the moments of the killing, he was "a zombie" and "like a man possessed" and was responding to "voices" that directed him to "hit him, hit him".
Two consultant psychiatrists called by the defence told the trial they believed Abdi was schizophrenic at the time of the killing and that his reason was impaired by a disease of the mind.
However, Dr Damien Mohan, a consultant psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital, disagreed and expressed his belief that Abdi was legally sane at the time. At the trial in May 2003, the jury was told Abdi had been in the hospital for the previous two years and on prescriptions of anti-psychotic and anti-schizophrenia drugs.
Abdi was not present for his appeal yesterday. His counsel, Mr Tom O'Connell SC, argued that the trial court should not have admitted evidence from Dr Mohan as to the latter's belief regarding Abdi's motive for killing his son.
Mr O'Connell said there had been an earlier trial of Abdi where the jury disagreed on the verdict. In that first trial, Dr Mohan had refrained from giving the opinion evidence which was heard at the second trial. In the second trial, Dr Mohan had spoken about inconsistencies in Abdi's evidence and said he did not believe he had heard voices.
Opposing the appeal, Mr John Aylmer SC, for the DPP, said it was within Dr Mohan's sphere of expertise to give his opinion on the motivation of Abdi.
