التصنيف: estaql

A man has been found guilty of the murder of Irish teacher Ashling Murphy.

The 23-year-old woman was killed while she was out exercising along a canal in Tullamore, County Offaly, in January last year.

She was wearing a Fitbit which showed her exercise started at 2.51pm. But 30 minutes later it tracked “erratic, violent movements”. At 3.31pm, the Fitbit was no longer recording any heartbeat.

Mr Murphy’s death drew outrage across Ireland and the UK, prompting calls for more to be done about femicide.

Jozef Puska, 33, of Mucklagh, Tullamore, was convicted by a jury of nine men and three women who reached their unanimous guilty verdict after beginning deliberations at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin on Wednesday.

Puska had pleaded not guilty to Ms Murphy’s murder.

Members of the victim’s family cried and hugged each other after the guilty verdict while Puska briefly placed his head in his hands before staring at the floor.

During the trial, the court heard a man was seen in a ditch with a woman, believed to be Ms Murphy, and he shouted for a witness to go away.

The witness said Ms Murphy appeared to be fighting back, but not making any noise.

Judge Mr Justice Tony Hunt told the jury “we have evil in this room” after the verdict.

Justice Hunt said: “There will be a day of reckoning for Puska.”

The judge said the case was particularly difficult given “the kind of person that she obviously was”.

Speaking of the Murphy family, he said: “Their position is unenviable. How their child was taken away, to consider what happened here is enough to make you physically ill.”

The jury were applauded as they exited the chamber as Ms Murphy’s mother held up a framed photograph of her daughter.

The judge said he had asked for silence but said the applause was “understandable”.

Read more:
Ashling Murphy and Ireland’s femicide epidemic

Loved ones pay tribute to Ms Murphy

Speaking outside the court, Ryan Casey, Ms Murphy’s partner, said: “Ashling was a vibrant, intelligent and highly motivated young woman who embodied so many great traits and qualities of the Irish people and its communities.

“Her life had a huge impact on so many of those around her, and she was the epitome of a perfect role model for every little girl to look up to and strive to be. She was not only an integral part of our family, but she was also a huge shining light in our community.”

Family’s relief at guilty verdict

Her brother, Cathal Murphy, said: “Ashling was subject to incomprehensible violence, a predator who was not known to her.

“The judicial process cannot bring our darling Ashling back, nor can it heal our wounds. But we are relieved that this verdict delivers justice. It is simply imperative that this vicious monster can never harm another woman again.”

Women’s Aid welcomed the conviction, saying in a statement: “The murder of Ashling Murphy was a shocking example of dangers posed to women and the case put a spotlight on the inherent risk of male violence in society. Every woman should have the right to be safe, both in their own homes and in their communities.

“One man goes to jail today but this will not bring Ashling back or compensate for her heart-rending loss. Effective criminal justice sanctions are vital and we truly hope this offers some measure of justice and closure to Ashling’s family and friends.”

The Israeli military has invited a large contingent of media organisations, including Sky News, to the Nitzana border crossing in the Negev Desert.

On the border between Israel and Egypt, it is currently the point through which all goods must pass before they can enter Gaza.

The purpose of the visit is to show the world that aid is getting into Gaza. And it’s true that trucks are making it in – but it’s stop-start and it’s a very laborious process.

Follow live: Israel-Hamas war latest

Before any goods are allowed to pass into Gaza, they must be security screened by the Israelis – a process that takes some time.

This is only happening at the Egypt-Israel Nitzana crossing where we were brought today.

The trucks arrive from Egypt on the Israeli side. There they are screened, sometimes several times, before passing back through to the Egyptian side of the border.

They then drive up to the Rafah crossing where they are checked again before passing into Gaza.

The Israelis say they have ‘eyes’ (probably drones) on the trucks as they drive from Nitzana to Rafah.

Since the 7 October Hamas attacks which triggered this conflict, an average of 38 trucks a day have crossed into Gaza through this stop-start process.

They are all required to pass through Nitzana and then snake back around through to the Rafah crossing.

Today’s expected figure is 96 trucks, which is encouraging but not nearly sufficient, according to UN officials.

The context is important here. Pre-war, about 500 trucks a day would get into Gaza.

The trucks would pass through various routes – either directly from Egypt through their Rafah/Salah Al Din crossing (primarily a foot crossing but increasingly used for goods) – or from Israel into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing.

The northern Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza is for people (under stringent conditions) only.

It was badly damaged by Hamas during their 7 October attack.

There is no airport in Gaza. The Yasser Arafat International Airport was destroyed by Israel in 2001.

United Nations officials tell me that the 96 trucks set to make the journey today are a fraction of what’s needed.

“It’s not just the number of people in Gaza who need humanitarian aid, it’s the depth of their needs,” one UN official told me this week.

Read more:
Tens of thousands of civilians flee amid heavy fighting
Netanyahu says Israel will have ‘overall security’ role in Gaza

The Israeli military, which manages the Nitzana crossing, has a different perspective on the situation inside Gaza.

“There is no humanitarian crisis inside Gaza,” Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of the Coordination and Liaison Administration to Gaza, told me.

But multiple aid agencies and the United Nations, who are on the ground in Gaza, have said repeatedly that the situation is dire.

An Australian surfer has broken the record for the biggest-ever paddle-in wave surfed by a woman.

Laura Enever set a Guinness World Record on 22 January when she surfed a 43.6ft (13.3m) wave at Outer Reef on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

The Australian called the wave “a gift” as she described the “perfect spot” she was in moments before she set a new record.

The 31-year-old said: “So many people were being taken out that day and I was kind of like just paddling around and sort of found this position in the line-up that I just felt like was kind of just a spot where if the wave came that was sort of big enough I would’ve been able to ride it.

“When that wave came I just… I was in the perfect spot. And that’s why I say it was such a gift, I was just right in the perfect spot and I turned and I had to take a few paddles.

“And I felt it pick me up and I looked down the face and I knew it was big when I was paddling into it but it wasn’t until I looked down the face and was like, it’s a long way down!”

Enever’s accomplishment was certified by Guinness World Records on Thursday at a ceremony in Sydney.

Paddle-in waves mean a surfer entered the currents unassisted. A tow-in wave instead is where surfers are pulled by jet-ski so they can access bigger tides.

The title for the biggest wave ever paddled into by a woman was previously Andrea Moller’s, who rode a 42ft wave on 16 January 2016, at Peahi, also known as Jaws, in Maui, Hawaii.

The Guinness World Record for the largest wave ever surfed by a woman is held by Maya Gabeira after riding a 73.5ft wave in Nazaré, Portugal.

A former Catalan political leader has been shot in the face in Madrid.

Alejandro Vidal-Quadras, who co-founded the far-right party Vox, was shot in the affluent Salamanca area at about 1.30pm on Thursday.

The 78-year-old was conscious when he was taken to hospital, a police spokesman said.

Mr Vidal-Quadras, who also used to lead Spain’s centre-right People’s Party in Catalonia, is expected to survive the attack.

Police are still searching for the gunman.

Santiago Abascal, president of the Vox party, said it is too early to speculate why Mr Vidal-Quadras was targeted.

“Thank god it seems that Alejandro Vidal-Quadras is out of danger,” he said.

The veteran former politician was walking down the street alone and about to get into his car, according to Spanish media, when he was shot by someone who had just got off a black Yamaha motorcycle.

Medical sources told El Mundo that the wound “crossed his jaw from one end to the other”.

The gunman and another person reportedly fled the scene on the motorcycle, driving the wrong way down a one-way street, before Mr Vidal-Quadras was taken in a serious condition to the Gregorio Maranon Hospital.

He is stable and conscious, El Mundo reports, citing medical sources, and his life is not in danger.

Police later confirmed they were still searching for two men who were on a motorbike, with the gunman said to be wearing a helmet.

The weapon is reported to be a 9mm parabellum calibre pistol.

No arrests have been made yet, and police have cordoned off the area where the shooting happened.

Read more from Sky News:
Man guilty of murdering teacher who was out jogging
Spanish duke told he has to shorten daughter’s long name
Pro-Russia ex-Ukrainian politician shot in Crimea attack

Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on social media he wants to convey his “solidarity and wishes for a speedy recovery” to Mr Vidal-Quadras.

Popular Party President Alberto Nunez Feijoo deplored the shooting and wished for his recovery.

Mr Vidal-Quadras became a member of the European Parliament before breaking away to co-found the Vox party, which he left shortly after a failed attempt to win a seat in 2014.

He hasn’t been active in politics for several years but has maintained a public role as a media commentator.

He served as a vice president for the European Parliament and took an interest in foreign affairs, participating in the legislature’s delegations to the former Soviet republics Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

She was just going for a run.

A phrase, and then a hashtag, that was forced into the Irish national lexicon in January 2022 with the murder of yet another bright young woman.

The savage killing in broad daylight of effervescent teacher Ashling Murphy, as she jogged along the Grand Canal in Tullamore, Co Offaly, led to a period of national soul-searching that echoed the fallout from Sarah Everard’s murder in the UK a year earlier. Ms Everard had just been walking home.

The parallels were clear. People took to the streets, social media was dominated for days by the story. Male violence against women “had to stop”, but no one seemed sure how to arrive at that outcome. Anger tinged with helplessness.

Hundreds of people attended a vigil in Camden, north London to pay tribute to Ms Murphy, who was killed just three months after Wayne Couzens was jailed for life for the rape, kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard.

Across Ireland, thousands turned out at rallies and vigils.

Traditional Irish music played softly at a tearful candlelit vigil in Tullamore. Ms Murphy had been a talented fiddle player.

Her father Ray played her favourite song When You Were Sweet Sixteen on the banjo.

“She was just the sweetest girl,” he said. “A little angel… a brilliant girl in every sense of the word.”

His little angel was stabbed 11 times in the neck in broad daylight in her hometown. Nobody will ever really know why.

Ms Murphy’s voicebox was severed. Her long blonde hair was soaked in her blood – twigs and brambles entangled within.

The Gardai, Ireland’s police service, vowed to “leave no stone unturned” in bringing the killer to justice.

Today’s conviction of 33-year-old Slovakian man Jozef Puska fulfils that vow and brings some closure to the homicide of Ms Murphy.

It will do little to make women across Ireland feel any safer.

“Male violence against women and girls needs to stop now,” declared Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill in the wake of Ms Murphy’s death.

That was a futile wish.

Read more from Sky News:
Irish woman who went missing after Hamas attack confirmed dead
Taoiseach weighs in after black gymnast denied medal

The women killed since Ms Murphy’s death

Some 18 women have been killed violently in Ireland since Ms Murphy’s death, according to the Femicide Watch run by the charity Women’s Aid.

They are not nameless statistics.

Sandra Boyd, Mary (Maura) Bergin, Ruth Lohse, Louise Mucknell, Lisa Thompson, Larisa Serban, Miriam Burns, Lisa Cash, Ioana Mihaela Pacala, Emma McCrory, Sharon Crean, Bruna Fonseca, Maud Coffey, Geila Ibram, Catherine Henry, Anna Mooney, Deepa Dinamani and Lorna Woodnutt Kearney.

All dead. All were killed violently.

It’s a grim irony that Lorna Kearney – the latest addition to the list – was also killed in Tullamore, like Ms Murphy.

That was in September. A teenage boy was charged with her murder last month.

Ireland’s ‘vanishing triangle’

It’s another widely-publicised irony that Ms Murphy was killed on a stretch of the Grand Canal which is named Fiona’s Way after another local woman, Fiona Pender, who went missing in 1996.

Six women have disappeared in five years from an area known as Ireland’s “vanishing triangle” – and none have ever been found.

It’s almost as if the femicides are piling up, overlapping each other in Venn diagrams of devastation and misery.

Every single woman can be prey

The angst at Ms Murphy’s death evolved into a national reckoning over the violence perpetrated against women, and became especially fiery on social media forums.

Amid the anger, a narrative pitted men against women.

“Not all men” was the retort from outraged social media users who have never had to clutch keys between their fingers or share a live location for a short walk home in the dark.

The simple truth is that of course not all men are evil predators. But every single woman can be prey.

And the almost intangible threat of violence influences daily decisions that women take, and can be reflected in the most mundane of ways.

Like many runners, Ms Murphy wore a Fitbit. It showed her exercise starting at 2.51pm that day along the canal.

By 3.21pm, the watch was showing “erratic, violent movements”.

At 3.31pm, the FitBit was no longer recording any heartbeat for Ms Murphy.

Femicide caught on Fitbit.

She was just going for a run. She didn’t even last an hour.