{"id":154717,"date":"2025-10-31T05:46:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T05:46:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/154717\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T05:46:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T05:46:14","slug":"two-men-found-guilty-of-murdering-croatian-josip-strok-on-dublin-street-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/154717\/","title":{"rendered":"Two men found guilty of murdering Croatian Josip Strok on Dublin street \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two men have been found guilty of the murder of Croatian national Josip Strok on a Dublin street last year. <\/p>\n

At the Central Criminal Court on Thursday, Mark Lee (44) and Anthony Delappe (19) were found guilty by a majority verdict of 11\u20131 of the murder of Mr Strok (31). <\/p>\n

Lee, of no fixed abode, and Delappe, of Melrose Avenue, Clondalkin had both pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Mr Strok. <\/p>\n

Connor Rafferty (21), of Castlegrange Close, Clondalkin, had pleaded not guilty to Mr Strok\u2019s murder. The jury returned a not guilty verdict in respect of the murder charge against Rafferty. <\/p>\n

All three pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to Mr Strok\u2019s friend, David Druzinec (29), at the same location. <\/p>\n

\"MarkMark Lee had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Josip Strok. Photograph: Collins Courts <\/p>\n

The jury heard that on March 30th, 2024, Lee was told of an alleged assault on a teenage boy at a bus stop near his home in Clondalkin and alerted the two other accused. <\/p>\n

The prosecution said that Delappe and Lee then followed Mr Strok and Mr Druzinec and assaulted them in the street. Mr Strok died four days later from blunt force injuries sustained in the attack. <\/p>\n

Seoirse \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing SC, for the Director of Public Prosecutions, told the jury that Lee had used his feet and fists to kick, stamp and punch Mr Strok. <\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Delappe had pleaded not guilty to the murder of Josip Strok. Photograph: Collins Courts <\/p>\n

Delappe, he said, had used \u201cbrutal\u201d force in repeatedly striking Mr Strok with a hard plastic pickaxe handle. Rafferty, he said, joined in by striking Mr Strok three times with one half of a crutch after Mr Strok had stopped moving. <\/p>\n

In his Garda interviews, Rafferty described giving Mr Strok two or three \u201clight smacks on the back\u201d. <\/p>\n

Rafferty\u2019s barrister, Bernard Condon SC, told the jury that in bringing a murder charge against his client, the prosecution was trying to fix the actions of the two co-accused onto the then 19-year-old. Mr Condon reminded the jury that in his garda interviews, Mr Rafferty said he didn\u2019t mean to seriously injure anyone, apologised and said he was ashamed.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Rafferty is not a monster,\u201d counsel said, \u201che is a young, gormless eejit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ConnorConnor Rafferty was found not guilty of the murder of Josip Strok. Photograph: Collins Courts <\/p>\n

Mr Druzinec suffered bruising to his face and required stitches but made a full recovery. Mr Strok had suffered one particularly severe wound to the back of his head which caused fracturing of the skull and a catastrophic brain injury. <\/p>\n

State Pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers would say the injury was probably caused by the fall backwards onto the ground. Mr Strok was pronounced dead in hospital four days after the attack.<\/p>\n

Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing said in his closing speech Lee and Delappe had pursued their victims after hearing of the alleged assault on a local youth. Delappe and Lee knocked their two victims to the ground and CCTV footage showed Lee repeatedly kicking Mr Strok in the head, he said.<\/p>\n

As Mr Strok tried to defend himself on the ground, Lee delivered a \u201cseries of punches\u201d followed by another kick to the head. At the same time, Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing said, Delappe struck Mr Strok with the pickaxe handle. Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing described Delappe\u2019s actions as \u201coverarm strikes with brutal ferocity\u201d using a hard weapon.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Druzinec has made a full recovery from the attack. Photograph: Collins Courts <\/p>\n

While Delappe was striking the deceased, Lee \u201cstamps on him with his left foot\u201d, Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing said. After the fourth strike with the bat, Mr Strok, who had been fighting back, stopped moving.<\/p>\n

Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing also suggested that Lee revealed his possible motive for the murder two days later when gardai arrived at his home with a search warrant.<\/p>\n

Lee told gardai it was \u201cterrible the way the homeless are treated\u201d while illegal immigrants \u201crun amok\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lee also told gardai he had been \u201cwalking up and down\u201d outside an asylum centre waiting on a \u201cforeign c**t\u201d over an attack on a child.<\/p>\n

While Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing said communities have a right to protest over concerns regarding proper consultation and whether things are being done in the \u201cright way\u201d, but there was a difference between protest and vigilante violence.<\/p>\n

.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr \u00d3 D\u00fanlaing reminded the jury that Mr Strok came to Ireland to work and contribute to society. \u201cHe clearly did not deserve what happened to him,\u201d counsel said.<\/p>\n

After the jury delivered their verdicts, Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring told the six men and six women they were excused from jury duty for the next nine years. <\/p>\n

She said the jury had performed \u201ca hard job, a thankless job,\u201d adding that she was grateful for their attendance in court over the last number of weeks of the trial. <\/p>\n

Lee and Delappe were remanded in custody to November 17th next for sentencing. <\/p>\n

Rafferty was remanded on bail to appear on the same date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two men have been found guilty of the murder of Croatian national Josip Strok on a Dublin street…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-154717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115467202477224764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}