Rome touched down at Dublin Airport on a bitterly cold morning on 30 December 1996. As the passengers disembarked, many looking forward to spending New Year’s Eve back in Ireland with their friends and family, one passenger faced an uncertain future. Sheilila Said Salim had turned thirty-one that year and had left his wife and three children back in Kenya to set himself up with a new life in Ireland, the land of the céad míle fáilte, a hundred-thousand welcomes. Sheilila had heard about the laxity of Ireland’s immigration laws. He was confident that if he could get into the country there would be little that the authorities could do to get him out again. The Irish economy had turned itself around from the terrible brain drain of the early 1990s when our great and good had to emigrate to Britain and America to find work. The country was beginning to prosper and the Celtic Tiger was in its infancy, a phenomenon that would soon bring previously-unthought-of prosperity to Ireland’s five million residents.
Sheilila Said Salim later claimed that he had paid $1,600 to a man who specialised in illegally transporting people into Europe. The man arranged for Salim to get on a flight from Mombasa in Kenya to Rome and on to Ireland. Salim had decided to change his name and hide his past once he got to Dublin. He presented himself to customs officials as Farah Swaleh Noor. He said he was a Somalian national, born on 2 July 1967. He told detectives from the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) that he had arrived from war-torn Somalia and was seeking political asylum. He carried no passport and few personal belongings and GNIB staff – who were well used to such claims by wannabe refugees – routinely processed Salim. He would have been interviewed and asked where he had come from and how he had managed to get into Ireland. GNIB staff would then have photographed and fingerprinted him. It was then arranged for him to be housed in temporary accommodation until a Department of Justice official could interview him. It was noted that Salim was approximately 5 ft 6" in height, of a thin, lean build with dark hair and black skin. Staff noticed a scar on his right wrist and on the back of his head.
Although Salim had decided to be dishonest with the authorities in Dublin Airport to try to get asylum in Ireland, his family back home in Mombasa missed him and wondered if they would ever see him again. As Det Sgt Gerry McDonnell later discovered, Salim had actually been born in Kenya in 1965, but as Farah he claimed he was almost two years younger. His father, Seyyid Salim, was a Somalian who was born in the mid-1940s. He had died in Mogadishu when Sheilila was a young man. His mother, known as Somoe Bakari Shigoo, a fifty-two-year-old Kenyan native, was still alive and living in Mombasa. Salim had one brother, Mohemedi Abuu, who was three years older than him and had emigrated to Toronto, Canada, in 1991. The young Salim had set up a life for himself in Kenya, marrying his wife Husna Mohamed Said, when she turned eighteen. They had three children together: Somoe, a girl, was born in 1989, Mohamed, his only son, came along the next year and Zuleh, the couple’s second daughter, was born in January 1991. Sheilila Said Salim did not have many friends in Kenya but was close to a cousin, Lulu Swaleh. As the years passed, Salim believed that there was no future for him in Kenya. He wanted to live in Europe. He told Husna that he would go to Europe and establish himself there, before flying his whole family over to start a new life. Secretly, however, Farah Noor as he later became, had no intention of ever seeing his wife and children again. He’d heard stories that some countries in Europe were soft touches when it came to refugees. If you turned up at a border and told a convincing sob story they would welcome you with open arms, give you free houses and cash in your pocket. You didn’t have to work and you could spend the days partying and hunting down women. This sounded like a sweet deal to Salim. He saved hard to come up with the $1,600 needed to smuggle him out of Africa and into a life of new and exciting opportunities.
When Salim arrived in Dublin seeking asylum, and while he was waiting to be assessed and processed by the Refugee Asylum Commission, he was sent to Tathony House in Dublin 8. At the time it was designated accommodation for asylum seekers. He spent a couple of nights there, before being transferred to the Brewery Hostel at 22-23 Thomas Street.
On 14 January 1997, Salim made his way into the Asylum Section of the Immigration and Citizenship Division of the Department of Justice at St Stephen’s Green to complete his application for refugee status. He filled out his name on the official form as Farah Swaleh Noor, born 2 July 1967, in Mogadishu, Somalia. He gave his nationality as Somalian, wrote that he was widowed and that his religion was Muslim. He claimed to be from the Bajun tribe and said that he spoke ‘Bajun, English, a little Arabic and Italian’. He gave his address in Somalia as PO Box 25, Shagari, Mogadishu, and he did not have any documents to prove his nationality. He claimed he had married his wife ‘Hajila’ in 1988 but that she was now dead. He gave the true details about his three children but he noted that he did not know where his children were now. He gave real names and addresses for his parents and said that his father was a businessman in Mogadishu, running a shop, and that his mother was a housewife.
Under the Education section of the application form he claimed that he had been privately educated between 1974 and 1978 but that he had gained no qualifications. He stated that he had worked as an assistant in his father’s shop for five years, until 1982, when he moved to live with his grandfather. He then got a job in the Italian Fisheries Department as a fisherman from 1982 until he left when the war started in 1991. When asked to explain why he had no identification or passport he wrote: ‘I had no time to get these documents before I had to flee from Somalia.’ He said he had left Somalia in May 1991 and travelled to Kenya. He claimed he had lived there until late 1996, in a refugee camp, until he gathered enough money to get him to Ireland. He told them he got a flight from Nairobi to Rome, where he then boarded a two-hour connecting flight to Dublin. It is likely that he didn’t stay in Rome because Italian immigration laws were far tighter and their system does not simply hand out free money to asylum seekers. Farah saw Ireland as a far nicer proposition. The only other possibility is that in reality Farah flew to Rome from London where he may have been living before he arrived in Ireland, seeking asylum.
Refugees are supposed to claim asylum in the first country they reach after fleeing their native land, usually because it is in the grip of civil war. Authorities around the world frown on people cherry-picking where they run to and asylum seekers must have a good reason to explain why they didn’t seek refuge in the first country they escaped to, in Farah’s case Kenya. His reason was: ‘Kenya is not a good country for a refugee. No food in camp. Giriyama tribe people do not like Somali people. Kenyan police do not like Somali people. Police steal from Somali people.’ On the application form he described his life in Kenya from 1991 to 1996, saying he: ‘Stayed in a refugee camp called the Wayoni camp in the Magongo region of Kenya. There was Bajun refugees mainly staying at this camp. Bad conditions, no water, nowhere to sleep.’
Farah claimed to have registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kenya when he was staying at the refugee camp. He denied that he had ever been in police custody or was a member of a political organisation or a trade union. Noor stated that he had a brother living in Toronto but that he wanted to stay in Ireland.
The final section of the Asylum Application Form enables those wanting to seek refuge in a country to give the reasons why this request should be granted. The following are Farah’s own words as they appear on his application:
‘My name is Farah Swaleh Noor. I was born in Somalia on 2-7-1967 in Mogadishu. My father and my mother they all Somali. I have one brother; I’m second born in my family. I used to be a fisherman in Kismayo. I was work with Fisheries Department. I start work from 1982-1990. From 1982-1990 there was no problem but from 1990 the war start to spread. So the war was worst, more than worst then I decided to go back to Mogadishu and see my family. When I reach Mogadishu I went to my family house. The door was open, when go inside nobody was in. The only thing I saw was the dead body of my wife, sh
e was having a bullet in her chest. Then I start panic and I was afraid then I didn’t know what to do because the war was spread all over the country. Then I decided to take some few stuff. I start to walk towards Port Mogadishu when I arrive there I got a small boat to go back to Kismayo. When I reached Kismayo I saw a lot of people which they were leaving the country with a big boat. I rush there and I ask where’s the boat going. One of them tell me is going to Kenya. We spend three days to Mombasa, Kenya. We registered with UNHCR then they take us to the camp. I stay in the camp for five years. We face many problems at the camp. There were no doctors, no food, no water and overcrowding. There were many refugees from my country and also there were Kenyan people. They don’t like Somalia people to be in their country. Sometimes to come to camp night time and start to attack us and sometimes kill some refugees so I was afraid with that, also I was lucky to find agent. Then the agent ask me if I have 2000 US Dollars he can arrange me a trip to go abroad, then I told him I don’t have that amount but I have 1600 US dollars. Then the agent agree with me. I was very happy to leave the camp it was a terrible life at the camp. Before the war I was having a good life but the war affect me very much. It may be you refuse my application, I don’t know what to do because the war destroy my house and I don’t know where’s my family are they live or dead. No government to protect me. Even if is reach 20 yrs Somalia it will be never like before. The war affect my country as well. No hospital, no houses, no water, no animal, no light, no road and no food. So I will be very happy if you allow me to stay in this country.’
On June 2, 1998, Noor was interviewed, through an interpreter, by an officer from the Department of Justice. He said he had no information about the whereabouts of his wife and children because all his friends had fled Mogadishu as a result of the political situation there. He stressed that he had not wanted to leave Somalia but he’d had no choice. He said he then fled to Europe from Kenya because of the tough conditions at the refugee camp – when he got the chance to leave he took it.
Noor was interviewed again on 17 September 1998 and claimed that scars on his wrist and head were inflicted by a group of bandits or soldiers from one of the defeated tribes during the war in Somalia.
In early December Farah Swaleh Noor’s application for refugee status in Ireland was rejected. He was informed of the decision on 2 February 1999, over two years after his application was submitted. Nine days later he appealed the decision and that appeal was heard on 3 June 1999. The Appeals Authority recommended that his appeal be granted and he was officially given refugee status in Ireland on 30 July 1999. This meant that he was now legally entitled to be in the country and could claim social welfare payments, under his assumed name. Friends of Noor say that he was proud to be legally living in Ireland. They said that he was happy in the country and, for the most part, that he got on with people. He owned several Ireland soccer jerseys and was a big supporter of the national team. On 21 August 2003 Noor made an application for Irish citizenship and this was still being considered when he was murdered.
While Farah Noor’s application for refugee status had been going through the slow and bureaucratic system, he lived in quite a few flats around the city, including one in 47 North Strand Road in Dublin. He spent most of 1997 there and the owner, Leah Morahan, remembers Noor as being ‘very friendly and charming’. He never caused trouble or problems for her ‘except for late night partying or dope smoking’. He also had a flat at 573 North Circular Road in Dublin 7 and spent quite a bit of time housed in the Rosepark Hotel on Baker’s Corner in Dun Laoghaire in South Dublin.
Farah Noor spent most of his days in Ireland drinking. He was a serious alcoholic who would get through three or four large bottles of vodka a day without any problems. He was a friendly man when sober and was well known around various pubs in Dublin city centre and Dun Laoghaire. Alcohol wasn’t his sole vice though. Noor was an occasional user of a variety of hard and soft drugs including grass, hash, cocaine, ecstasy and possibly even heroin. As well as the names Farah Swaleh Noor and Sheilila Said Salim, he also occasionally went by a third alias, Shilelagh Swaleh Shagoo.
Noor loosely socialised with the Somalian community in both Dublin and Cork. He would turn up in a pub and go in every day for months on end, before disappearing and not being seen or heard from for a year or more. He was the same with his friends. They would see him occasionally and then he would up and leave without a word to anybody. He spent a lot of time drinking with friends around the Blessington Street area and would spend every second night or so there, drinking with other men who’d come to Ireland from Somalia. His Somalian friends didn’t know that in reality Farah was from Kenya and was using an assumed name.
Noor’s friends knew him by quite a few nicknames including Sheilila, America and Abawa. Farah was a massive football fan and religiously followed the English Premiership. He was a big Manchester United fan and had three or four Man United jerseys and two tracksuits, as well as other clothes bearing the emblem. He even wore a Man United sovereign ring.
In August 1997 Farah met a Chinese girl in Dr Quirkey’s amusement arcade on O’Connell Street. ‘Lynn’ was just sixteen and was mentally disabled. She was playing pool with a friend when Farah went up to her and asked her to be his girlfriend. He told her that he wanted her babies. He had never seen or spoken to her before and Lynn refused. She did agree to go back to his flat, however, and when they arrived Noor sat beside her on the couch and then forced her to have sex with him. It was the only time that the pair had sexual intercourse. Lynn found out she was pregnant one month later and when she told Farah he said he wasn’t interested. He wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. She rarely saw Noor after that and he didn’t try to meet his son ‘John’ until he had drunkenly called to Lynn’s city-centre flat out of the blue, on St Patrick’s Day.
Lynn later told gardaí: ‘Farah was not violent to me. We had a nice relationship. I was with him for nine months and I only had sex with Farah once. Farah lived by himself in the flat down the road. When John was born Farah never saw him. I think he was six years old when Farah first saw him. Farah called to the house here to see him. I don’t know if John saw Farah on 20 March 2005. He didn’t tell me that he saw him. John would know what Farah looks like and he knows that Farah is his dad. When I first met Farah we used to play pool together. Sometimes Farah would phone me to meet with him. I didn’t have a phone number for him. He would phone me ’cos he had my number. The last time I saw him before March 2005 was last year. I was walking near Jury’s on Parnell Street when I heard someone call me and when I looked I see Farah. He stopped but he told me he goes to work. He told me he stayed in a hotel and that’s where he lived. He didn’t tell me the name of the hotel.’
Although this statement doesn’t portray Noor as nasty or violent, Lynn would later give a far different version of events during Linda and Charlotte’s court case, claiming that he was a brute.
Noor’s life changed in April 1998 when he met and fell in love with ‘Paula’, who was out celebrating her sixteenth birthday. She was in third-year in secondary school and the courts have since asked that Paula’s real identity should not be revealed. Paula was walking through town with her friends when Noor approached her and started talking to her. He told her he was twenty, even though he had told the authorities he was born in 1967 and was supposedly thirty-one. They started going out and she became pregnant less than three months later.
Paula gave birth to their son in March 1999. They were very happy at first. Farah was a devoted dad who spent a lot of time with his son and loved and cared for his partner. He stopped calling round to most of his Somalian friends and was very close to Paula’s family. He used to go fishing and hiking with her father and moved into her family home in South Dublin.
When the baby was about three months old, however, Noor began to drink a lot and his behaviour and attitude changed. He would often disappear for days on drunken benders and he started hitting his girlfriend. Paula would later de
scribe to detectives how Noor was a ‘lovely man’ at first but changed when he started drinking.
Noor and Paula were given accommodation by the council and over the next three years moved into three different houses in the same area as Paula’s family. Farah put his ex-girlfriend through years of hell. She spoke to gardaí on a number of occasions and shocked officers with her harrowing accounts of life with the alcoholic Kenyan. She told detectives how she had feared that it was only a matter of time before Noor murdered her.
The first time he hit her was during a night out with one of her friends. He accused the woman of being a lesbian who wanted to sleep with Paula. His girlfriend stood in shock as Noor abused her pal in graphic sexual terms. Paula was so afraid of him that she didn’t go home that night. The following day she turned her key in the door and Noor attacked her, giving her a vicious beating. She did not go to hospital and subsequently returned to Farah because she was young and naïve. When he said he’d never do it again the seventeen-year-old believed him.
Farah regularly beat her black and blue after that, for no other reason than that he was drunk. He would pull her hair and punch her on the head so he did not leave marks. She was forced to call the guards three or four times because of his violence towards her and others. Paula made a number of complaints to Tallaght Garda Station about her boyfriend but still did not have the courage to leave him.
Noor used to burn himself with cigarettes and threatened to do the same to his girlfriend. The violence against her started to occur every single day and he eventually started to rape her. Paula later stated he had had ‘very brutal sex anytime and anywhere he wanted it and wouldn’t take no for an answer’. Eventually rape and domestic violence became an everyday experience, living with Farah Swaleh Noor. Paula, who was only a young girl, thought at the time that this animalistic behaviour was normal. Nevertheless she left him on two occasions but Noor came and begged her to get back with him, promising that he would change and be a better father. She gave him the benefit of the doubt and went back to him but the beatings always continued.
The Irish Scissor Sisters Page 13
