Members of the family of convicted murderer Jozef Puska have been jailed for terms of between 20 months and two-and-a-half years for offences connected with the murder of Ashling Murphy almost four years ago.
Puska’s brothers, Marek Puska and Lubomir Puska, as well as Jozef Puska’s wife, Lucia Istokova, were convicted of withholding information from gardaí.
The maximum sentence for this offence is five years.
The brothers were sentenced to two-and-a-half years each.
Istokova was jailed for 20 months.
Lucia Istokova was jailed for 20 months
Jozef Puska’s sisters-in-law, Viera Gaziova and Jozefina Grundzova, were found guilty of assisting an offender by burning Jozef Puska’s clothes after the murder of Ms Murphy in January 2022.
This offence carries a maximum sentence of ten years.
Gaziova was jailed for two years. Grundzova was jailed for a year and nine months.
In victim impact evidence, Ms Murphy’s father, Raymond, said the small comfort the family had that Jozef Puska was rotting in prison, isolated and alone would have been robbed from them, if the five members of his family had succeeded in hiding his guilt by withholding and destroying vital evidence.
Her sister, Amy, said Ashling’s murder had ripped the family’s lives of joy, colour and meaning. She added what was left was “survival – nothing more.”
She said her most consuming emotion during the proceedings was anger at the injustice and at the enormous public cost of the legal proceedings.
She said the family felt gaslit when lawyers for the defendants recounted the family values of their clients.
She said the court was told they had come to this country seeking a better life and believed in the importance of family and education but their actions completely contradicted this.
She said the Puska family members made deliberate choices and each chose silent complicity.
Ms Justice Caroline Biggs said she agreed entirely that what happened was a closure of ranks and a decision was made to say nothing and to lie to assist Jozef Puska in avoiding arrest.
She said the jury had found that they did this knowing well that Puska had confessed to the killing of Ashling Murphy.
The judge told the Murphy family she was acutely aware how powerless the criminal justice system was to do anything to ease their unspeakable and exceptional pain and suffering.