Nassar Ahmed appeals murder conviction as court reserves judgment

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

Nassar Ahmed appealed his conviction for the murder of Eoin Boylan at a Court of Appeal hearing on 8 December 2025. Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said the three-judge court would reserve judgment and deliver its decision later.

Ahmed pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. The State did not accept his manslaughter plea.

Boylan, 32, was stabbed to death at Gordon Drive, Cloughleigh, Ennis, on 14 April 2020. A Central Criminal Court jury unanimously convicted Ahmed of murder on 27 June 2022, rejecting his claim that he had acted in self-defence. Ms Justice Eileen Creedon sentenced him to mandatory life imprisonment in July 2022.

The prosecution told the jury that Ahmed had invited Boylan to a fist fight while concealing a knife and described the stabbing as a “sneak attack”. Ahmed told gardaí that he grabbed something sharp after being attacked, but could not remember what it was or where he threw it. He accepted in his Garda interviews that CCTV footage showed Boylan retreating.

At the appeal hearing, Michael Bowman SC, for Ahmed, argued that certain evidence had been presented incorrectly at trial and that the trial judge had erred in her ruling. Lorcan Staines SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, maintained that the ruling was correct.

This report covers an earlier stage of the case. Later developments are not reported here.