Case thrown out against Polish former on-the-run suspect Jerzy Zalewski accused of murdering Edward Kelly over £20

With the case against Jerzy Zalewski listed at Newtownards Magistrates’ Court for a warrant to be executed, a PPS lawyer told the court she was applying for the charges against the 50-year-old to be withdrawn.

Facing charges across three bills of indictment Zalewski, with an address at Dufferin Avenue in Bangor, had been charged with the murder of Edward Kelly on 15 June 2006, driving while unfit and without insurance on 13 June 2006, and driving with excess alcohol and without insurance on 29 May 2006.

Nicknamed “the monster,” Polish national Zalewski fled Northern Ireland after he was granted bail for the violent murder of 58-year-old alcoholic Mr Kelly.

Of the two other people who were charged alongside him, 60-year-old Daniel Hargan served an eight year sentence – seven years custody and one on probation for manslaughter – while his then-girlfriend Tammy McDowell, who was 19 at the time of the incident, died as a result of a drug overdose.

Grandfather Mr Kelly was viciously attacked in his bedsit in Dufferin Avenue and left for dead over an alleged debt of £20 he owed Hargan.

Having been kicked and stamped into unconsciousness, his assailants left him lying and help was only summoned when his landlady found him but by that stage, it was too late and he died as result of a brain haemorrhage.

When Hargan pleaded guilty to manslaughter in September 2008, the court heard then the PPS accepted the plea to the lesser offence on the basis they could not prove there was an intention to kill and because “other people not before the court” may have been involved.

Jailing Hargan, Mr Justice Weir said he found it “impossible to comprehend how a disagreement over £20 could result in the brutal attack and death…upon a small, lightly person of 58 who could have been no match for his assailants”.

He added: “This was a dreadful crime that has removed from his family a father and grandfather who, whatever his own problems, held an important place in their lives.”

In court today, District Judge Liam McNally formally withdrew all charges against Zalewski.

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