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One savage baseball-bat blow, three murder trials and seven years in custody: the Zoltan Almasi case

Serbian-born Hungarian national Zoltan Almasi chased 20-year-old Joseph “JoJo” Dunne and struck him from behind with a baseball bat, causing near-instantaneous death. His first murder conviction was quashed by the Supreme Court; after two retrial juries failed to agree, the DPP accepted his manslaughter plea and he received 11 years, backdated to the night of the killing.

Published 26 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger

ManslaughterFinal operative conviction

11 yearsBackdated to May 2014

Three trialsOne quashed verdict, two hung juries

≈€725,000Source-bounded custody illustration

The final legal record must be stated accurately. Almasi is not a convicted murderer: the Supreme Court quashed that verdict. He is a convicted killer whose guilty plea to manslaughter was accepted after three murder trials, two appeals and more than seven years in continuous custody. At final sentencing, the judge found beyond reasonable doubt that Almasi intended serious injury when he chased Dunne and delivered a savage blow to his head.

From Yugoslavia to Hungary, then Ireland

Almasi testified that he was originally from Yugoslavia and crossed into Hungary after deserting the army when war began around 1990. He settled there, raised three daughters and obtained a Hungarian passport. Reporting from his first sentence described him as born in Serbia and having become a Hungarian national around 2007.

He moved to Ireland in 2007 seeking better employment after divorce. He worked as a carpenter before becoming a courier and truck driver, remarried and settled in Naas. “Serbian-born Hungarian national” is the clearest synthesis of the reliable Irish reporting; the record does not require an unsupported claim about dual nationality.

A thump on a van answered with a baseball bat

On 16 May 2014, Almasi returned home from work and heard banging outside. Joseph Dunne, who had been drinking with friends, struck or thumped Almasi's Mercedes van as the group passed his home.

Almasi went downstairs, armed himself with a baseball bat left in the house by a previous occupant and chased Dunne. CCTV showed Almasi raise the bat over his head. Dunne was running away with his back turned when Almasi delivered one downward blow with the tip of the bat to the back or side of his head.

The blow caused a comminuted, depressed skull fracture and severe traumatic head injury. Mr Justice Michael White later described it as a “savage blow” that caused near-instantaneous death. Dunne was 20 years old.

Seven years of trials and appeals

Almasi was taken into custody on the night of the killing and remained there through the final sentence. In March 2016, his first Central Criminal Court jury convicted him of murder by majority verdict after more than eleven hours of deliberations across four days. He received the mandatory life sentence, backdated to 16 May 2014.

The Court of Appeal upheld that conviction. On 26 June 2020, however, a five-judge Supreme Court allowed Almasi's further appeal in DPP v Almasi [2020] IESC 35, quashed the murder conviction and ordered a retrial.

The Supreme Court identified errors including the trial judge's failure to leave the partial defence of provocation to the jury, the presentation of heavily redacted Garda interview memoranda and the exclusion of relevant evidence about Dunne's earlier conduct and demeanour. That ruling cannot be brushed aside: the murder conviction and life sentence ceased to have legal force.

Two hung juries are not acquittals

Almasi was tried for murder twice more. The second jury could not agree. His third trial ended on 1 July 2021 with another disagreement after more than thirteen hours of deliberation.

Those outcomes were hung juries, not acquittals. At the retrials, Almasi pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. On 16 July 2021, the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted that manslaughter plea, ending the murder prosecution and establishing the final offence for sentence.

High-culpability manslaughter and 11 years

On 8 September 2021, Mr Justice White placed the offence in the high-culpability range for manslaughter. He found beyond reasonable doubt that, from the moment Almasi ran at speed after Dunne with the bat, he intended to cause serious injury—and did so.

The judge set a headline sentence of 15 years. Taking account of the guilty plea and mitigation, including Almasi's work history and prison conduct, he imposed 11 years and backdated it to 16 May 2014. He recommended that Almasi finish the sentence at Wheatfield Prison.

Case chronology

Around 1990: Almasi leaves the former Yugoslavia and settles in Hungary.
Around 2007: He obtains Hungarian nationality or a Hungarian passport and moves to Ireland for work.
16 May 2014: Almasi chases Joseph Dunne with a baseball bat and kills him with one blow; he enters custody that night.
10 March 2016: A majority jury convicts Almasi of murder at his first trial.
16 March 2016: The mandatory life sentence is imposed and backdated to the killing.
26 June 2020: The Supreme Court quashes the murder conviction and orders a retrial.
Second trial: The jury cannot agree on murder.
1 July 2021: The third trial also ends with a hung jury.
16 July 2021: The DPP accepts Almasi's guilty plea to manslaughter.
8 September 2021: He receives an 11-year sentence, backdated to 16 May 2014.

About €725,000 in prison-space cost through final sentence

The Irish Prison Service reported that an available staffed prison space cost an average of €99,072 a year in 2024, excluding capital expenditure. The documented continuous custody window from 16 May 2014 to final sentencing on 8 September 2021 was 2,672 days, or about 7.316 years. Applying the later IPS benchmark as a flat rate produces an illustration of approximately €725,000 in prison-space cost alone through final sentencing.

This is source-bounded and not an audited personal bill. It applies a 2024 system-wide average retrospectively and excludes any custody after September 2021 because no current release or custody record was located. It also excludes Garda investigation, prosecution, court and legal-aid costs for three trials and two appeals, healthcare, and the losses borne by Dunne's family. The wider proceedings plainly consumed public resources, but no defensible individual total for them is available.

A conflict in the minor-record reporting

The final 2021 sentencing report says Almasi had no previous convictions. An earlier 2016 report recorded three previous road-traffic convictions. The sources therefore conflict on his minor record. No prior violent conviction is reported, and this page does not silently turn a discrepancy about traffic matters into a claim of serious repeat offending.

What the record does not show

There is no sourced basis to describe Almasi as an asylum seeker, unlawfully present or subject to an Irish deportation order. As a Hungarian national, he was an EU citizen. His current custody or release status after the 2021 sentence was not verified for this page, so the cost calculation stops at final sentence rather than extrapolating through the nominal term or to 2026.