Aivars Sondors pleads not guilty to three charges of assisting an offender

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

Aivars Sondors was arraigned at the Central Criminal Court on 19 June 2017. He pleaded not guilty to three counts of assisting an offender. The proceedings were reported on 19 June 2017.

The charges allege that Sondors impeded the apprehension or prosecution of Marius Gaizutis on 9 or 10 September 2013, knowing or believing that he had unlawfully killed Audrius Butkus.

The particulars include moving Butkus’s body from a house on Marsh Road in Drogheda and placing it in the sea at Mornington Beach; cleaning the scene at Marsh Road; and disposing of carpet, clothing, a nail brush, a bin bag, bottles and tins from the scene at Burke House, Mathew’s Lane, Drogheda.

Sondors’s barrister, Colman Fitzgerald SC, said his client admitted the three allegations but that the issue for the jury was whether he had acted under duress. A jury was sworn to try him.

Prosecuting counsel Patrick Gageby SC said Gaizutis had been convicted of Butkus’s murder on 1 May 2015. The trial continued before Mr Justice Paul Coffey and was expected to last seven days.