Court told of depraved torture attack over drugs debt

Date Published: 05-May-2011

By Ann Healy

A Lithuanian man told Gardai he shoved an iron bar up another man’s rectum and then urinated on him to make little of him as is the tradition in his country because he owed him money for drugs, a trial in Galway heard yesterday.

Gintautas Bagdonas (32), with a former rental addresses at Clan House, Dominick Street, and co-accused Aurelijus Zrielskis(36), with a former rental address at 26 Cois Chlair, Claregalway, both deny the false imprisonment of Jaan Eemon (33), at Francis Cottage, Coolough, near Menlo, on May 25 last year. Both Lithuanian men also deny intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Mr Eemon in a shed beside the thatched cottage on the same date.

The men’s trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court this week heard evidence that during interviews with Gardai following his arrest, Bagdonas said Zrielskis was not involved and he had carried out the assault on his own because Eemon owed him almost €3,000 for heroin and was avoiding him.

Bagdonas said he lured Eemon out of hiding by getting Eemon’s friend, Konstantin Sinkevic to meet him in Woodquay. When Eemon got into his friend’s car, Bagdonas said he and Zrielskis jumped in the back and he told Sinkevic to drive to the shed near the cottage. He said the other men went into the cottage while he took Eemon to the shed.

“I tied him up with cables and beat him with a sledgehammer. I just wanted to break his hands. I took a piece of metal and pushed it in his ass a few times. I pissed on him and called him a faggot. I threw the iron away after first rubbing it around his (Eemon’s) face.

“In our country, and in Russia, if you piss on somebody or shove something up their ass he is no longer equal to you. In prison he can no longer speak to us and can only speak to people of his own destiny,” Bagdonas told Gardai.

The trial continues at Galway Circuit Court.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.