{"id":512437,"date":"2026-06-01T03:27:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T03:27:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/512437\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T03:27:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T03:27:15","slug":"uk-pathologist-to-conduct-independent-postmortem-of-yves-sakila-body-at-familys-request-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/512437\/","title":{"rendered":"UK pathologist to conduct independent postmortem of Yves Sakila body at family\u2019s request \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A forensic pathologist from the UK will carry out an independent postmortem examination of Yves Sakila<\/a>\u2019s body on Tuesday on instruction of the Sakila family. <\/p>\n

The Congolese man, who had lived in Ireland since 2004, died after being restrained<\/a> by security guards on Dublin\u2019s Henry Street. His family requested an independent examination but had \u201csome difficulty\u201d getting permission for an expert from outside the jurisdiction to access his remains.<\/p>\n

Following a meeting between Congolese and Irish representatives<\/a>, however, the family has received permission for London-based senior forensic pathologist Dr David Rouse to examine the body, solicitor John Gerard Cullen, who is representing the Sakila family, has said.<\/p>\n

Cullen said he had been told that a preliminary postmortem was carried out two weeks ago but that the family had yet to be given any result. The results, the family understands, are said to be inconclusive.<\/p>\n

He said the authorities are waiting for a report from a toxicologist, which is intended to inform the findings, but this could take between six and 12 weeks.<\/p>\n

Cullen told The Irish Times he had been advised by an expert that it can be \u201cfrequently difficult\u201d to determine cause of death in restraint cases without examining CCTV footage of the incidents.<\/p>\n

Arnotts<\/a> and An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a> have refused requests from the family to access anonymised CCTV footage recorded by the shop\u2019s camera of Sakila\u2019s movements in the shop, pursuit by security staff and the restraint incident during which he became unresponsive.<\/p>\n

The retailer has declined to give the family the footage out of concern of interfering with the Garda investigation, he said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Let us be no more silent\u2019: Protesters keep up pressure over death of Yves SakilaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

He said a solicitor for Arnotts said they had been instructed by the Garda not to release any information in relation to the incident.<\/p>\n

Arnotts declined to comment when contacted. The retailer previously stated it would not comment while Garda investigations were ongoing.<\/p>\n

A similar request made to the Garda under the Victims of Crime Act, seeking information on progress of inquiry, has not been satisfactorily responded to, Cullen said.<\/p>\n

He said the family has been left to rely on amateur videography of the incident. Though this footage is \u201ctelling\u201d, he said that had it not been recorded the incident may never have come to the public consciousness.<\/p>\n

Cullen said there said there is a lack of clarity over events and that garda\u00ed have not complied with requests from the solicitor.<\/p>\n

Cullen pointed to a \u201cpotential conflict of interest\u201d for Store Street Garda station to be in control of the Garda investigation when it had operational control of the incident.<\/p>\n

Another investigation by Fiosr\u00fa, the Office of the Police Ombudsman, is also under way.<\/p>\n

An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, when contacted, said the matter \u201cis subject of two investigations\u201d and will not comment further. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn such situations, An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na appoints a family liaison officer to engage with the family of the deceased,\u201d a Garda representative said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A forensic pathologist from the UK will carry out an independent postmortem examination of Yves Sakila\u2019s body on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,199342,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-512437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-arnotts","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116672727987539181","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512437","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=512437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}