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Aleksejus Belousovas: attempted murder for €3, extradition and 15 years

After fake heroin left him seeking more money, Aleksejus Belousovas attacked the first stranger he encountered. The student had only €3. He cut her throat, stabbed her repeatedly and tried to break her neck before leaving her for dead. He fled across Europe, was extradited from England and received 15 years, a sentence upheld on appeal.

Published 29 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger
€3Money the victim carried
3 guilty pleasFinal criminal outcome
15 yearsOperative concurrent term
Appeal dismissed24 April 2009

Lithuanian national Aleksejus Belousovas pleaded guilty to attempted murder, assault causing serious harm and attempted robbery after a random knife attack at a Dublin apartment block. His victim survived because she played dead and because a neighbour found her before she bled to death.

The case combines an exceptionally serious attack with a completed cross-border justice record. Belousovas left Ireland, travelled through several European countries, was traced in England and extradited back. The sentencing court imposed concurrent terms headed by 15 years for attempted murder, and the Court of Criminal Appeal later refused to reduce that sentence.

A robbery decision after fake heroin

On 10 May 2005, Belousovas bought what he believed was €40 worth of heroin on Thomas Street in Dublin. He went to Bertram Court near Christchurch and injected the substance beneath the stairs. When he concluded that the heroin was fake, he decided to rob someone.

At about 7.30pm, a 24-year-old student returned to the apartment block carrying a bag containing study notes, groceries and a mobile phone. She was the first person Belousovas encountered. She had just €3.

The woman was identified in historic reporting, but this case file does not repeat her name. The gravity and public accountability of the conviction do not require renewed identification of the victim.

Repeated stabbing and an attempt to break her neck

Belousovas approached as the woman entered the building and held a foot-long kitchen knife to her throat. When she showed him her bank card, he became agitated. A struggle followed.

He stabbed her in the right shoulder, cut her throat twice and then drove the knife into her neck. The blade struck a vertebra with enough force for its tip to break off inside her body. He also took hold of her head and twisted it in an effort to break her neck.

The woman realised that resistance might get her killed and pretended to be dead. Belousovas dragged her beneath the stairwell, searched her pockets and bag and left.

A neighbour soon heard a gurgling sound from beneath the stairs and called the emergency services. Surgeons at St James's Hospital fought to save her. The court heard that any one of several wounds could have been fatal.

The lasting damage

The woman spent two and a half weeks in intensive care. After leaving hospital, she required care around the clock for almost 18 months. She faced continuing physical and psychological consequences and the prospect of several operations for scarring.

At the later appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeal stressed both the viciousness of the attack and the seriousness of the damage. It noted that the sentencing judge had regarded the conduct as meriting life imprisonment before mitigation was applied.

Flight, CCTV identification and extradition

Belousovas did not report for work the day after the attack. He left Ireland for Lithuania, travelled through other European countries including Poland and eventually reached England.

Gardaí reviewed about 100 hours of CCTV. Footage from a nearby shop showed a construction-company logo on the back of his jacket. Investigators contacted the employer, which was carrying out DART improvement work, and identified the worker who had disappeared after the attack.

With Interpol assistance, Gardaí traced Belousovas to Derbyshire. He had been arrested for theft in England and was on police bail. He was extradited to Ireland to face the Dublin charges, reportedly returning about seven months after he fled.

This was extradition for prosecution, not deportation. The located sources do not establish Belousovas's immigration permission in Ireland, any asylum claim or any later removal process, and this report makes no such inference.

Guilty pleas on the second day of trial

Belousovas initially went on trial at the Central Criminal Court. On the second day, 27 March 2007, he changed his pleas and admitted attempted murder, assault causing serious harm and attempted robbery.

He apologised in court. His defence also proposed a restorative-justice meeting, but the victim declined to meet him privately and the judge did not proceed with the proposal. Her refusal did not diminish the guilty pleas or the court's obligation to sentence the offences.

Three concurrent sentences

On 28 March 2007, Mr Justice Barry White imposed:

All three terms were ordered to run concurrently and were backdated to June 2006. The operative sentence was therefore 15 years, not 30. The judge said that, had Belousovas contested the charges rather than pleading guilty, a life sentence would have been considered appropriate.

The severity appeal failed

Belousovas appealed against the severity of the sentence. He argued, among other matters, that prison would be more difficult for him as a foreign national with limited English.

On 24 April 2009, the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the appeal. The court found no error in the 15-year term, said it could not understate the viciousness and seriousness of the attack and concluded that the trial judge had already given appropriate credit for the guilty pleas, remorse and foreign-national circumstances.

This was a sentence appeal following guilty pleas. It was not an appeal against jury convictions, because there were no final jury verdicts on the three charges.

The prior criminal record

A pre-sentence Irish Independent report stated that Belousovas had four previous Irish convictions covering theft, intoxication in a public place, threatening or abusive behaviour and a Road Traffic Act offence.

No located reliable source supplies a broader overseas criminal history. This report therefore records only those four reported Irish convictions and does not treat the English theft arrest as a conviction.

Case chronology

A transparent 15-year prison-space benchmark

The Irish Prison Service reported an average 2024 cost of €99,072 per available, staffed prison space per year, excluding capital expenditure. Applying that much later system-wide benchmark to the operative 15-year term produces a gross capacity illustration of €1,486,080.

This is not a Belousovas-specific invoice or a historical expenditure total. The sentence was imposed in 2007 and backdated to June 2006. The calculation does not establish his actual time served, release date, remission, temporary release or marginal cost to the State. It simply expresses the nominal 15-year prison term using a published 2024 system average.

The figure excludes the Garda investigation, international police work, extradition, prosecution, courts, criminal legal aid, intensive medical treatment and victim support. Public sources reviewed do not provide reliable case-level totals for those services.

What this case warns about

The factual warning is stark. A stranger was selected for robbery because she happened to enter her apartment block at the wrong moment. She had only €3, yet Belousovas continued through repeated potentially fatal wounds and an attempt to break her neck.

The accountability record is equally important. Flight did not end the case. CCTV, an employer's assistance, international police cooperation and extradition returned him to an Irish court. Guilty pleas produced three precisely defined concurrent terms, and appellate review left the operative 15-year sentence untouched.

Sources