Aivars Sondors charged with impeding homicide investigation

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Aivars Sondors faced three counts of assisting an offender at the Central Criminal Court. The proceedings were reported on 20 June 2017.

The charges alleged that, on 9 or 10 September 2013, Sondors impeded the apprehension or prosecution of Marius Gaizutis, knowing or believing that he had unlawfully killed Audrius Butkus. The particulars included moving Butkus’s body from a house on Marsh Road in Drogheda and placing it in the sea at Mornington Beach, cleaning the Marsh Road scene, and disposing of items from the scene at Burke House, Mathew’s Lane, Drogheda.

Sondors admitted the three allegations but pleaded not guilty to all three counts. His barrister said the issue for the jury would be whether there had been duress.

The jury had previously heard that Gaizutis was convicted of murdering Butkus on 1 May 2015. On 20 June 2017, Carmen Canales testified that Gaizutis’s partner came to her door with her five crying children on the evening of 9 September 2013, asking for help. Canales said the woman told her Gaizutis had threatened to kill her. The family slept at Canales’s home that night.

The trial was continuing before Mr Justice Paul Coffey.