Irish man ‘murdered over game of chess’
Police tell Dublin court accused confessed to murdering landlord, who suffered multiple stab wounds.
An Italian man has been charged in Dublin with murdering his Irish landlord in an argument over a chess game.
Saverio Bellante, 34, appeared in a Dublin court on Monday accused of the murder of Tom O’Gorman the previous day.
A policeman told the court that, when charged, Bellante replied, “I am guilty”.
Police said Bellante, who had rented a room in O’Gorman’s home, claimed the chess dispute as his motive.
Pathologists say the 39-year-old victim suffered dozens of knife wounds to his head and chest, so severe that a lung was missing.
Bellante told the court at Monday’s hearing he wanted to represent himself.
The judge ordered Bellante to be held without bail to receive a psychiatric evaluation and to reappear in court on Friday.
Bellante, a native of Palermo, had worked in Dublin for the past two years at a drugs company.