A LITHUANIAN man who came to Ireland in search of a better life was bludgeoned to death in his Limerick home just two-months after his arrival in the city.
Dainius Burba was 39 when his flatmate beat him to death with the leg of a coffee table at an apartment they shared off Wolfe Tone Street in Limerick in April 2015.
Last Friday, Arnis Labuskis (56), a Latvian father-of-two, began a life sentence when he was found guilty of the murder after initially blaming the violent attack on a fictitious intruder.
Mr Burba was murdered between April 20 and 21, 2015, after he suffered several blows to his face and a broken skull.
When he was questioned by Gardaí, Arnis Labuskis blamed an intruder but during the trial at the Central Criminal Court, he claimed he had acted in self-defence.
He said that Dainius Burba called him in to a darkened room in the middle of the night and attacked him with the leg of a coffee table. He managed to get the table leg off his attacker and used it to swing out in defence.
He walked for four hours before calling to his daughter’s house and telling her he had been in a fight. He returned home a short time later and when a neighbour checked in on him, he was found trying to hide evidence. He had also dumped a bloodied t-shirt in a nearby wheelie bin.
Deputy State Pathologist Dr Michael Curtin said he found Mr Burba’s blood-stained body on a bed and that he had “full thickness” injuries as well as a broken skull and jaw. He had received around 19 blows to the head and face which caused his death.
Sergeant John Farmer read a short victim impact report on behalf of Mr Burba’s sister, Gitana Burbaide who described the victim as “a good person, who never wanted to die.
“He came to Ireland two months before his death looking for a better life,” she explained.
The statement went on to describe the impact the killing has had on the lives of Mr Burba’s family.
After the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict, Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy jailed Arnis Labunskis for the mandatory life sentence and commended the Gardaí involved in the investigation.
“This investigation is a fine model of how investigations should be conducted,” she said.
