Two Irish men were denied a fair trial when they were convicted of the manslaughter of a Dublin drug dealer whose mutilated body was found in a suitcase in an Amsterdam canal, according to a ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

The judgment, published yesterday, found that Dubliners Kenneth Brunell, 40, from Palmerstown and Barry McArdle, 41, from Drimnagh were convicted at a Dutch Court of Appeal without the court having heard directly from the witnesses who had incriminated them.

They had faced charges of manslaughter and the unlawful disposal of the body of 29-year-old Keith Ennis, originally from Clondalkin in Dublin, who suffered multiple stab wounds in a Rotterdam apartment in February 2009.

They were initially acquitted of manslaughter but then convicted on appeal and both jailed in the Netherlands for 13 years.

Their cases will now be re-opened after the ECHR ruled that the Court of Appeal had reassessed the facts of the case and the men’s guilt, by relying on testimony from a key witness, whose credibility was central to the case, without hearing from him in person.

The ruling said that the credibility of this witness had been seriously called into question.

His evidence had been decisive in securing their conviction.

“This meant that that court had not had an opportunity to directly assess his reliability.

“This was incompatible with the principle of immediacy, requiring courts to use original, primary evidence, and undermined the fairness of the proceedings as a whole,” the judgment found.

Keith Ennis was known to criminal groups and wanted by the Irish authorities when his dismembered body was found in bin bags and in a suitcase on a canal dyke in Amsterdam in February 2009.

As well as having been stabbed, his head and legs had been cut off.

It was later determined, from forensic findings, that he had been killed in the flat he was staying in, in Rotterdam.

Kenneth Brunell and Barry McArdle had also been staying in the same flat in Rotterdam and a witness, identified as X in the judgment, alleged that they had acted in self-defence, in the killing of Keith Ennis, whilst the witness had gone out to buy drinks.

The witness made further allegations about their respective involvement in the events, including his helping to clean the flat, disposing of the body and his driving them all to France for a ferry to England.

Both Kenneth Brunell and Barry McArdle were arrested in Ireland in July and October 2011 respectively, and charged with intentional and premediated killing, either together or in association with others, and with helping to get rid of the body.

At four hearings at the Amsterdam Regional Court, held in April and May 2017, both said they had stayed at the Roterdam flat but they had denied any involvement in the killing and said they had not met the victim and were not present when he was killed.

No decisive forensic evidence was made available to prove the applicants’ involvement in the murder or manslaughter and the Regional Court considered that the case was mainly about assessing the reliability of X’s statements, versus the credibility of the two accused men.

In a judgment on 15 May 2017, the Regional Court found the applicants guilty of jointly and unlawfully disposing of a body, but not guilty of murder or manslaughter.

They were both sentenced to two years imprisonment.

The Regional Court considered X’s statements to be insufficiently reliable to establish beyond reasonable doubt their involvement in the murder or manslaughter of the victim.

It noted that X had only incriminated them after he had seen the case file and realised that phone tracking data placed him at the scene.

Moreover, it seemed likely from phone data that, if anyone had left the apartment, it was Mr Brunell who had left the apartment for a short time that evening.

However, the public prosecutor appealed against this judgment and three appeal hearings took place in April and May 2018, but a request to re=examine witness X was turned down.

Relying on these statements from witness X, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal convicted them of manslaughter and the disposal of Keith Ennis’s body in May 2018.

Both lodged appeals with the Supreme Court there, which upheld their convictions.

However, they then appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in 2020.

The ECHR found that the reopening of proceedings against the two men would be the most appropriate form of redress in this case.