THE COURT OF Appeal has upheld a miscarriage of justice finding in the case of a father who spent 16 years in prison before he was found not guilty by reason of insanity of the murder of his infant son.

President of the three-judge court Justice George Birmingham said  and his conviction was “wrong in a fundamental aspect”.

The approval of the Miscarriage of Justice application had entitled Abdi to seek compensation from the State.

Abdi, of Charleville Road, Phibsborough, Dublin 7 was convicted of murdering his 20-month-old son Nathan Barak Andrew Ali at The Elms, College Road, Clane, Co Kildare on April 17, 2001 following a trial at the Central Criminal Court in 2003.

At that trial psychiatrists differed over whether Abdi was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia when he caused his son’s death.

Ten of the 12 jurors accepted the evidence of Dr Damien Mohan, the psychiatrist called by the prosecution, who said that Abdi was not suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. Abdi was convicted by a majority verdict.

In February 2019, the Court of Appeal heard that since his conviction Abdi’s diagnosis had changed from depression to one of paranoid schizophrenia.

The court found that the changed diagnosis amounted to new evidence that, if known by the jury in 2003, could have influenced their verdict.

The appeal court quashed Abdi’s conviction and ordered a retrial which resulted in a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

At that trial, Dr Mohan said he was persuaded by the arguments made by a professor called by the defence and accepted that in 2003 Abdi may have shown signs of mental illness. He also accepted that Abdi had a history of paranoid schizophrenia.

Following the jury’s verdict Justice Alex Owens at the High Court certified that Abdi’s original conviction was a miscarriage of justice.

The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the certification, saying that the evidence relied on by the jury in the original trial was honest and given by a psychiatric expert.

Delivering today’s judgement President of the three-judge Court of Appeal, Justice George Birmingham, said that there is no question in this case of prosecutorial irregularity or perjured evidence.

The question, he said, was whether the conviction was “wrong in a fundamental aspect”.

He said the decisive factor in the retrial was that psychiatric experts called by both the defence and prosecution agreed that Abdi was suffering from schizophrenia when he killed his son.

There is no doubt about that diagnosis, the judge said, and Abdi “should never have been convicted”. He said the conviction for murder was therefore “wrong in a fundamental aspect” and Justice Owens was correct to certify it as a miscarriage of justice.