Witness failed to identify Badri Khvedelidze from photographs

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

The Central Criminal Court heard on 23 October 2015 that a witness had failed to identify Badri Khvedelidze during an earlier photographic identification exercise. The proceedings were reported on 23 October 2015.

Badri Khvedelidze has pleaded not guilty to murder. The charge concerns the killing of George Tkeshelashvili at a direct provision hostel for asylum seekers in Tralee, Co Kerry, in October 2005.

Adeyenka Sow Unmi told the court he heard loud voices and saw a fight at the end of a hostel corridor. In a statement to gardaí taken later that day, he said a man walked towards him, away from the fight, carrying a knife. He told gardaí he could identify the man because he had walked directly towards him.

When shown eight photographs, the witness identified three men but did not identify Badri Khvedelidze as having been at the scene.

Defence counsel Kerida Naidoo SC put it to Detective Garda Brian Mackey that gardaí had made a mistake by failing to highlight this non-identification in the book of evidence. The detective denied it was a mistake, saying four other people pictured had also not been identified and he had not felt the need to mention those either.

The trial was listed to continue before Judge Isobel Kennedy and a jury on 27 October 2015.