A man who admitted murdering a woman in Limerick city in 2023 has pleaded guilty to a terrorist-related offence.
Habib Shah Shamel, 29, appeared at Belfast Crown Court where his case was listed for trial.
However, defence counsel Niall Hunt KC told Mr Justice Fowler that he had an application to have Shamel re-arraigned on the single charge left on the bill of indictment which he had previously denied.
The charge stated that on 6 April 2023, he “possessed a document or record containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, namely files within USB, exhibit UD13”.
When the charged was put to Afghan national Shamel by the court clerk, he replied through a Farsi interpreter: “Guilty.”
Senior prosecutor David McDowell KC told Mr Justice Fowler: “That disposes of the indictment. There has already been a guilty plea to count one (charge of murder) which was on 2 May 2025.”
Mr Hunt said he did not at this stage believe he would be relying on any other reports apart from a pre-sentence report compiled on the defendant by the Probation Board.
Mr Justice Fowler listed the tariff hearing for the murder charge for 6 November 2026, when he will also hand down a sentence for possessing documents likely to be of use to terrorists.
In May last year, following Shamel’s guilty plea to murder, a senior judge told him: “Mr Shamel, since you have pleaded guilty to the murder of Geila Ibram in April 2023, I must now impose on you a sentence of life imprisonment.
“There will be a subsequent hearing to set the number of years which you must serve before your release can be considered.
“However number of years that will be, you will serve a very long period of time in prison before consideration of your release ever comes around.”
Ms Ibram, who was 27 and originally from Romania, was stabbed at her apartment in Limerick city on 4 April 2023.
She had been stabbed five times – twice to the face, once to the chest, once on the abdomen and once on the forearm, which appeared to be a defensive injury.
Mr McDowell told the hearing in May last year that Shamel had arranged by text to meet Ms Ibram for sex.
“He arrived at the flat and paid her €100. She gave the money to a colleague,” Mr McDowell said.
“Several seconds later this colleague heard screams and it was apparent Shamel had stabbed Ms Ibram.
“The fatal injury was to the chest which went through her lungs and entered her heart. Death was a result of blood loss due to multiple stab wounds.
“The fact that he stabbed her within seconds of meeting Ms Ibram invites the obvious inference that he came there to kill her.”
Shamel fled the scene and went to Dublin before heading by bus to Belfast. The PSNI stopped him in a car on the Malone Road in south Belfast on 6 April 2023.
During interviews with police, he said he had gone to the escort to “satisfy his sexual needs” because of something he had viewed online.
When Shamel was arrested, the PSNI seized a rucksack and found a notebook which contained a handwritten letter to his mother in which he expressed a desire to “sacrifice his life to Allah”.
The court heard the bag also contained a USB stick which contained alleged terrorist-related videos of executions, dismemberment, encouragement to support Jihad, instructions on how to construct and detonate an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
Mr McDowell said there were also videos of suicide bombers including a father encouraging his 10-12-year-old son to blow himself up and then him doing so.