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Scissor Sisters: The Murder of Farah Swaleh Noor

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Farah Swaleh Noor was 40 years old at the time of his death. He arrived in Ireland in December 1996, claiming to be a Somali called "Sheilila Salim" whose family had been killed in Mogadishu during the Somali Civil War. Subsequent investigations revealed that he was in fact a Kenyan. He was granted Irish citizenship in March 1999 because he had become the father of an Irish-born child.

Noor had four previous convictions for offences including intoxication, threatening and abusive behaviour and assault. Noor had faced eight charges of disorder and assault, one involving a sexual assault in which a knife was found at the scene by gardaí. He was convicted on three occasions but never served time in jail. Noor lived in a number of areas in Dublin, including Dún Laoghaire and Firhouse, as well as the inner city before moving in with his then partner Kathleen Mulhall.

Gardaí described him as being particularly violent towards women. On the 20th March, 2005 sisters Linda and Charlotte Mulhall, following a day of binge drinking and taking extasy tablets, killed and dismembered their mother's boyfriend, Farah Swaleh Noor. He was killed with a Stanley knife wielded by Charlotte and struck with a hammer by Linda following a confrontation with the sisters and their mother. His dismembered body (torso and limbs) were dumped in the Royal Canal in Dublin where a piece of leg, still wearing a sock, was spotted floating near Croke Park 10 days later.

The subsequent manhunt and the trial of the two sisters in October 2006 attracted intense media attention as the details of the crime slowly emerged. The sisters and their mother were arrested but released until Linda finally confessed to involvement in the crime, implicating her sister in the killing and along with her mother, the clean-up and disposal of Noor’s body.

Kathleen Mulhall left the country to live in England. When Charlotte and Linda were charged with murder in December 2005, their father, John Mulhall, hanged himself in Phoenix Park. Linda and Charlotte were both charged with murder and pleaded not guilty in the Central Criminal Court. Linda was found guilty of manslaughter while her sister Charlotte was found guilty of murder. Charlotte Mulhall was given the mandatory life sentence and Linda Mulhall was given a 15-year sentence for manslaughter. Kathleen Mulhall voluntarily returned to Ireland in February 2008 and, among other offences, was charged with two counts of giving false information to gardaí about Noor's whereabouts, and withholding information which she "knew or believed" would be of assistance in prosecuting her daughters for Noor's murder. She was also charged with impeding an arrest in the murder investigation. She pleaded guilty to helping to clean up the crime scene to conceal evidence. She was sentenced to five years in prison in May 2009.

Because of the method used in Noor's killing, the Mulhalls were dubbed the Scissor Sisters by the media. Justice Paul Carney, presiding over the trial, said during sentencing that it was ‘’the most grotesque killing that has occurred in my professional lifetime.’’

After serving their sentences, Linda and her mother Kathleen were freed from prison. Charlotte Mulhall remains in Limerick prison serving her life sentence.

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