Somali national accused of killing Ukrainian teenager travelled to Ireland

Kitty HollandFriday May 22, 2026

Court conducting age inquiry over asylum seeker charged with murder of Vadym Davydenko (17)

Dublin District Court is conducting an age inquiry, applied for by Tusla, regarding the Somali national. Photograph: Tusla stock image

Disturbing accounts of a young asylum seeker’s route to Ireland were laid before Dublin District Court on Thursday in a case that has gripped attention since the killing of Ukrainian teenager Vadym Davydenko in Tusla accommodation last year.

The court is now carrying out an age inquiry, sought by Tusla, in relation to the Somali national accused of murdering Mr Davydenko, 17, in Donaghmede, Dublin, on October 15th last.

The agency no longer believes he is a child, despite having deemed him “presenting as a minor” last August.

The young person remains on remand in Oberstown Children Detention Campus awaiting trial.

Accompanied by gardaí, he became emotional in court as his barrister, Deirdre Lynch, read from Tusla’s eligibility assessment report.

In August 2025, he told the age assessor that he had left Somalia in 2021 after the Islamic militant group Al-Shabaab took his father and “tried to force him to join their army”.

She read, “They tortured him, threw large rocks on him”, and referred to the scars visible on his face and arm.

“After one month he was released from prison and went home … His paternal uncle dressed him as a woman and organised for him to leave Somalia.” The report said the pair travelled on foot and by car to Libya, reaching it in 2022.

“They were taken to a ransom place and he had to work and clean like a slave. There were many people there who had to work for their release. They got one meal a day. After eight months they were released … They got to sea and got in a boat. The sea was very rough. The boat collapsed. Some people died as they drowned, including his uncle.”

He managed to return to shore, where he was imprisoned again. According to the account, he was sexually assaulted and beaten so badly by police that he had to be taken to hospital. Staff there “told him to escape if he could”. He later met a group of Somalis who were trying to reach Italy.

“They were in the boat two days and two nights. A big boat came and took them all to Italy.”

He arrived in Lampedusa, Sicily, in February 2023; was registered in Bologna in June 2023; and reached Dover in a small boat in October 2023.

“It was the most extensive record of what he alleges is his passage from Somalia to Ireland”, Lynch said.

Det Sgt Mark Quill of Coolock Garda station, who is leading the investigation into Davydenko’s death, repeated his “categoric” belief that the young person was over 18 when he allegedly killed the Ukrainian teenager.

He accepted that view was based in part on a report from Dundee social work department to the UK Home Office, which said its age inquiry “concluded that [the young person’s] physical appearance … would suggest he was significantly over 18 years old”.

But Kelly Coyle, the social worker who carried out the Dundee assessment, told the court she had thought he looked “young, a teenager”, while still assessing him as over 18.

Quill said he was “surprised” to hear Coyle give evidence “that was never said by her”.

Coyle said her work amounted to a “brief age inquiry” lasting “about 30 minutes”, rather than a full age assessment.

Near the end of the second day of the inquiry, it also emerged that Tusla had carried out a second, more recent age assessment, but was not placing it before the court.

Judge Conor Fottrell called the situation “an extraordinary” one.

“This is a very serious decision that the court has been asked to make. Serious issues are arising from this. It is one of the most serious decisions this court will make … In order to make that decision, all relevant information must be brought,” he said.