Secret Turkish witness in Graham and Dinsmore murder trial
A 'secret' witness is to give evidence at the trial of a father and son charged with the murder of two County Down women in Turkey last year.
Eyup Cetin and his son, Recep, 22, are accused of stabbing Marion Graham and Cathy Dinsmore in August 2011.
Ms Graham's daughter Shannon was Recep's girlfriend at the time.
A lawyer for the victims' families said the witness would give evidence from elsewhere in the building when the trial resumes on 9 November.
The two accused appeared in court together for the first time on Friday.
The lawyer, Baris Kaska, said the court had accepted the result of forensic tests which proved that Recep was 22 years of age and not a teenager as he had claimed when arrested.
Mr Kaska said a witness, who claims to have seen Recep Cetin's father at the murder scene will give evidence from another room in the court building.
He said he would be able to question the witness but would not be able to see him/her.
Mr Kaska said he had been harassed and intimidated by family and friends of the two accused and he had to be protected at Friday's hearing by 30 police officers plus secret service people.
At the last hearing, he said he had been surrounded and eventually had to remain in the police station for 30 minutes until the crowd had dispersed.
Mr Kaska said threats had now been made against him and he intended to complain on Monday to the prosecutor's office.
Marion Graham and Cathy Dinsmore, both in their 50s, were murdered in a wood near the city of Izmir.
The friends were on holiday in Kusadasi, about 100km from Izmir.
Shannon, 15, was on a boat trip when the killings happened. She alerted police when she arrived home and could not get in touch with her mother.
When arrested Recep Cetin told police he was 17 which would have meant he would have been tried as a juvenile, but bone tests proved he was five years older than he claimed.
Mr Cetin will be now tried in an adult court along with his father.
Mr Cetin snr was taken into custody several months ago.