A French-speaking Algerian man accused of stealing a valuable gold necklace on a Dublin street has been granted bail after his arresting officer stepped in to act as his translator in court.<\/p>\n
Ishmail Benkedidah (31), of Grand Canal Park, Dublin 15, is charged with the theft of jewellery worth \u20ac3,500 from a person on D’Olier Street in the city centre.<\/p>\n
He appeared before Judge John Hughes at Dublin District Court on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Garda Christopher Kirwan, based at Pearse Street Garda Station, told Judge Hughes that the accused man was arrested just after 3am on Saturday.<\/p>\n
He was held at Pearse Street station, where he was charged with the offence before being brought to court.<\/p>\n
Garda Kirwan initially objected to bail, telling the court he feared the accused would not return to answer the charge.<\/p>\n
He said it was believed the man was based in the Midlands and was travelling back and forth to the Dublin city centre to commit similar offences.<\/p>\n
The garda added that he was not entirely satisfied with the address the defendant had provided.<\/p>\n
However, when questioned by Judge Hughes, the officer said the man had no prior warrant for failing to appear.<\/p>\n
The judge then addressed the accused, who was unrepresented due to the ongoing industrial dispute, which has seen solicitors withdraw their services from District Court legal aid cases.<\/p>\n
The protest is in response to plans by Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan to reform the system and introduce a \u20ac520 flat fee for District Court cases.<\/p>\n
In his interaction with the judge, Benkedidah said he could understand some English, but his first language was Arabic.<\/p>\n
When the judge told him the garda’s fears and asked if he would turn up to court, the man replied: “I will.”<\/p>\n
The judge decided that an official interpreter should be called, and the case was about to go into recess to book an Arabic translator.<\/p>\n
However, Garda Kirwan asked Benkedidah if he spoke French, to which the man agreed.<\/p>\n
The garda then assisted and communicated with Benkedidah in French, carefully translating the judge’s questions and explaining the judge’s final decision, and clarifying the terms once a ruling was made.<\/p>\n
The court heard the accused is a construction worker who fluctuates between part-time and full-time employment and is paying around \u20ac1,000 in rent in Dublin.<\/p>\n
Benkedidah, who has yet to enter a plea, agreed to the bail terms.<\/p>\n
Judge Hughes granted legal aid and released him on a \u20ac500 cashless bail bond.<\/p>\n
The man was ordered to reside at the Dublin 15 address he had provided and to sign on at his local garda station every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.<\/p>\n
The judge also imposed a curfew requiring him to remain at his residence between 10pm and 6am.<\/p>\n
The judge also directed that a French translator be available to assist the defendant at his next hearing.<\/p>\n
Benkedidah was ordered to appear in court again in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A French-speaking Algerian man accused of stealing a valuable gold necklace on a Dublin street has been granted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-546204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}