Icelandic police investigating double murder ask gardaí to seach Dublin house
Icelandic police investigating the killings of a father and daughter in a Reykjavik hotel have sent a formal legal request to gardaí, asking them to search the victims' home in Dublin.
The man, who was aged in his 50s, and his adult daughter were French citizens but had been living in Dublin for about a decade before travelling to Iceland earlier this month for a weeklong holiday.
On the morning of June 14th, they were found with multiple stab wounds in a room on the fourth floor of the Edition Hotel where they had been staying.
A woman, aged in her 60s, was arrested at the scene. She is the wife of the deceased man and mother of the dead woman.
READ MORE
Icelandic police have been liaising with both gardaí and French police since the start of the investigation to gather information about the suspect and victims.
They have now sent a formal international legal request asking gardaí to search the family's home in Dublin to determine a potential motive for the killings. It is understood gardaí are happy to comply with the request.
Icelandic police have yet to release the name of the victims or suspect, in line with standard procedure in the country. However, some details have emerged about the family.
They moved to Ireland in 2017 where they maintained a low profile. The father is from New Caledonia, a tiny collection of islands in the south Pacific which are governed by France. The mother was born in metropolitan France to parents who came to the country from Asia.
The family arrived in Reykjavik on June 7th. They stayed in two rooms at the luxury Edition Hotel where rooms costs at least €1,000 a night. During the day they went on daytrips before returning to the hotel in the evenings.
The man had been suffering from advanced kidney disease and required regular treatment.
They were due to return to Dublin on the morning their bodies were found by hotel staff. They had suffered extensive stab wounds and a knife was found at the scene.
The mother was taken to Landspítali Hospital for treatment for serious but non-life threatening life injuries.
Police are trying to determine if these injuries were self-inflicted.
She remains in hospital under police guard. She has given two formal statements to police.
Last week police were granted a further two weeks to hold her in custody.
The Icelandic public broadcaster RÚV reports that she is likely to remain in custody until at least September when a decision will be made on whether to formally charge her with murder.
Under Icelandic law, the public prosecutor has 12 weeks from arrest to determine if a suspect should face formal charges.
Police are expected to object to the woman being released on bail before a decision is made.
Forensic investigations of the suspected murder weapon are continuing while the room in the Edition Hotel remains sealed off as a crime scene, RÚV reports.
The woman is next due before a judge on July 4th.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
3 hours ago
- Irish Independent
New CCTV cameras on hold awaiting Garda code of practice
In a written reply to a motion by Cllr Dominic Finn, Divisional Manager Kevin Morey said that the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Act 2023 was enacted and signed into law by the President in December 2023. However, a commencement order authorising community CCTV has not yet been signed and can't be until An Garda Síochána submit a code of practice governing the installation and operation of a CCTV scheme. 'There is no deadline in the legislation for the completion of this code of practice, therefore we await guidelines,' Mr Morey said. Section 6 of the new act repealed the current authorisation process for community CCTV provided in the Garda Síochána Act 2005 and no new schemes can go ahead until the new code of practice is submitted and the commencement order is signed. This month's meeting of the West Cork Municipal District heard of anti-social behaviour at the Rock Amenity Park in Skibbereen where vandals were smashing bottles on the ground, leaving broken glass strewn around. Cllr Brendan McCarthy called for the installation of a CCTV camera to curb the problem. 'We need to install a camera at the location to root out the people doing this up there. A pole is in place as part of the redevelopment of the site for the specific purpose of putting a camera on it,' Cllr McCarthy said. 'The Gardaí have also stated that they have no issue with a camera or cameras being installed there, in fact they would roundly welcome their installation to stop this horrible behaviour.' However, a Council official responded that the local authority can't install any new CCTV systems until the new code of practice is circulated.
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
Jón Jónsson answers are in Iceland, not Ireland, his brother says
The brother of missing Icelandic man Jón Jónsson agrees with Garda detectives that the answers to his brother's disappearance six years ago lie in Iceland . The poker player had been in Ireland less than 24 hours when he disappeared after leaving the Bonnington Hotel in February 2019 during the Dublin Poker Festival. 'You would think the answers are in Iceland,' said Jón's brother, Davíð Karl Wiium. 'Probably something prior to his disappearance has something to do with his disappearance.' Five gardaí have come to Reykjavik for the first time this week to work on the case, a development that is welcomed by Wiium and his family. Gardaí are working closely with members of the Icelandic police. 'We are very happy that they're here. It's a huge milestone in the case. It's been six years,' Wiium said. READ MORE He hopes that in Iceland, gardaí will get answers that will point them in the right direction. 'I hope, by coming here, the Irish police can get a better understanding of what he was doing before he came to Ireland. Look into his closest surroundings, talk with people of interest, the family, friends,' Wiium said. 'You get to know the person. You get to know what he was doing, and where he was before, and what he was involved in.' [ 'I'm almost certain something happened': Family fear missing Jón Jónsson was killed by hitman in case of mistaken identity Opens in new window ] Wiium met gardaí in Reykjavik this week as they began to take statements in Iceland. He has felt momentum pick up in the case again with recent media appearances such as The Late Late Show, which the family appeared on in March. A podcast series on Jónsson's disappearance also came out in January. 'We really felt the snowball rolling,' Wiium said, adding that the podcast has given the family extra strength. 'It has probably been the most positive impact from the beginning. It was like an extra push that we needed after a long, long time.' Where is Jón?/Hvar er Jón? is a co-production between RTÉ and Icelandic broadcaster RÚV. It delves into Jón's background over seven episodes, through interviews with his family and friends. Jón's family welcomed the podcast's focus on Jón's case and hoped it would bring them answers. Wiium said it was important also that the podcast 'portrayed Jón as who he is. He was a really good man, a great person and father that coincidentally started playing poker a couple of years before he disappeared.' Wiium said his brother had been looking forward to the tournament and remembers him speaking about it for weeks beforehand. 'I know he really wanted to be a poker player. He was not a sports guy. He was into board games, poker, video games, that kind of stuff. And he wanted to be really good at poker.' He speaks of a man who was always there for everyone. 'A 'family comes first' kind of man. So it's very much out of character.' The toll it has taken on Jón's family has been immense. 'It's hard for everyone. It's a big family, and emotionally it's hard. When you have someone disappearing very close to you, it starts to tear you up inside. It always creeps back. It's always there.' 'We just really want to find him, and hopefully figure out what happened.'
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘It was not really human at all': policing the worst of Dublin's rental market, with its bed bugs, overcrowding and no leases
Julia Langneck was full of hope and excitement when she moved from Brazil to Dublin to learn English at 18 years of age. Within months of arriving in the country she would find herself living in a bedbug-infested bedsit, sharing a room with four other people and paying almost €400 a month for the privilege. There were eight people sharing one bathroom on the ground floor of the three-storey building on Bolton Street in Dublin's north inner city. They were allocated one shelf each in a shared fridge, one cupboard each in the kitchen and slept in bunk beds in two separate rooms. 'It was not really human at all; it was really terrible,' says Langneck. READ MORE She recalls watching a bedbug crawl across her phone one night, and sleeping in the livingroom for fear of being bitten. 'My two housemates had bruises and bites all over their body, and we had to pay for it to be cleaned,' she says. There were eight people sharing one kitchen on the ground floor of the three-storey building on Bolton Street in Dublin 1. Photograph: Julia Langneck When the situation became unbearable, Langneck decided to move out, but her landlord, Renato Passos, withheld her deposit. She brought a case against him to the Residential Tenancies Board, the rental market regulator and arbiter of landlord-tenant disputes. The board ordered him to pay the deposit and damages. It would not be the last time he would have dealings with the regulator. [ Dublin landlord hit with largest-ever RTB fine over failure to register tenancies Opens in new window ] Sources within the RTB this week gave The Irish Times an insight into how they investigate rogue landlords and what they have seen vulnerable tenants go through. Inside the RTB, a team of investigators work like a detective unit to turn tip-offs into tangible prosecutions under powers afforded to it in 2019. They report a pattern in their findings: landlords with multiple properties, the subdividing of dwellings, overcrowded units and the absence of lease agreements. They regularly find vulnerable tenants, who have often just arrived in Ireland with no real understanding of their tenancy rights, paying high rents in substandard accommodation and being threatened with eviction or being moved around to different locations with no notice and seemingly no other option. Part 7A of the Residential Tenancies Act was enacted in 2019 and gives powers to the RTB to investigate improper conduct by landlords. Under the Act the RTB can appoint 'authorised officers' to investigate complaints and gives them extensive powers of entry and search, as well as power to compel people to provide information. The outcome of the investigation is sent to a 'decision maker' within the RTB, who decides if improper conduct has occurred. A financial sanction can then be imposed on the landlord, and must be confirmed by the Circuit Court. Details of the sanctions – and the landlord who received them – are then published on the RTB website. Tenants were sleeping on beds on the floor of the bar area of what was once Buck Whaley's nightclub on Leeson Street While Langneck's case was taken through its disputes process, the RTB subsequently began its own independent investigation into Passos when media reports detailed serious overcrowding and unstable tenancies in properties he was leasing on Leeson Street in Dublin 2. In November 2024 this resulted in the RTB's largest ever sanction, with the company run by Passos, Sweet Home Accommodation Ltd, being fined €22,000 for a breach of rental laws at six city-centre properties under his control. Investigators established that he had failed to register 20 tenancies in properties on Leeson Street, Middle Abbey Street and Upper Abbey Street. During its investigation the RTB discovered Brazilian students were being targeted through language schools and on social media about properties Passos did not actually own but was subletting. The tenancies were very short term, only a few months in duration, and rents were on average €500 per month. Tenants were sleeping on beds on the floor of the bar area of what was once Buck Whaley's nightclub on Leeson Street. There was extensive overcrowding at this property and at multiple other properties run by Passos, with bunk beds crammed into makeshift apartments, mattresses laid on floors and livingrooms converted into bedrooms. In one property there were 15 people sharing one kitchen. Investigating this case proved particularly difficult for the RTB because almost all of the tenants had moved out, often back to Brazil, by the time the case started. Significant time was spent by investigators tracing down these tenants, calling, emailing and chasing them by any means possible to try to get their evidence on the record. Eventually they gathered enough responses to ground a case, noting the most striking thing about their evidence was that these people did not know they were tenants, nor that the landlord couldn't move them out in the morning, nor that they were entitled to privacy and space in their own home. Sweet Home Accommodation Ltd is now in liquidation and the RTB is not aware of any outstanding cases against Passos. Asked to comment on the investigations, Passos responded to say the company was no longer operating. While Passos engaged with the RTB investigators and was co-operative in their investigation, other landlords have proven much more difficult to track down. Serving the notice of investigation on Marc Godart proved particularly difficult Controversial Luxembourg landlord Marc Godart and his company Green Label Ltd has been issued several sanctions by the RTB, following the conclusion of multiple investigations into his conduct. The Irish Times has investigated his rental property interests over several years, finding repeated instances of overcrowded accommodation and unlawful evictions in his sprawling Irish rental portfolio. However, sources within the RTB say that serving the actual notice of investigation on him proved particularly difficult. An investigation cannot continue unless the board can prove this notice was received by the landlord, and so landlords often do their best to evade receiving it. The first line of defence is often hiding behind multiple different company names, requiring the regulator to trawl through company records to establish the person behind the front. In Godart's case, investigators found letters were returned to them because the letterbox of his registered address had been blocked up. When investigators called to hand over the letter in person, they found the office was on an upper floor of a multi-unit block that they could not access. In the end, they waited outside the office on five occasions in order to gain trust with those coming and going, who eventually let them in and allowed them to push a letter under the door of the registered address. The RTB is keen to emphasise its persistence in investigating improper conduct in the rental market, and latest figures show the number of sanctions it is securing is growing at a steady rate. In 2024 it published 75 sanctions, with a value of just over €238,000. This is almost four times higher than what it gathered in 2023, at €64,360. Julia Langneck: 'I really love Ireland, but accommodation is such a big issue' Julia Langneck says she is grateful for the investigations into Passos, who she feels made her time in a foreign land far more difficult than it needed to be. 'You feel that someone from your country is going to help you, because you just arrived and everything is hard, but it was totally the opposite,' she says. 'He just kind of used us to get money. 'It's really upsetting, because you think you just crossed the ocean to another country to try a better life, and then you meet someone from your own country, and you think that person is going to help you, but definitely not.' After six years in Ireland, she returned to Brazil this summer to be with her boyfriend, Deliveroo driver João Ferreira. Ferreira lost part of his right leg after being seriously injured when he was hit by a Garda vehicle on the M50 in 2023. He is awaiting more surgeries in his home city of São Paulo. As the couple adapts to the realities of this new life, Langneck reflects on her time in Ireland. 'When people ask me, I say I really love Ireland, but accommodation is such a big issue there. In the end I got a nice apartment, a nice job – after years of worry, I felt like it was worth it in the end.'
