Dublin Jury Convicts Man of Attempted Murder of Three Children; Trial Finds Him Fit Despite Cognitive Impairment

A jury at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin found Riad Bouchaker guilty on Wednesday of attempting to murder three children during a stabbing attack on 23 November 2023. The 52-year-old Algerian-born Irish citizen was convicted of the attempted murder of a five-year-old girl, a five-year-old boy and a six-year-old girl.

He was also found guilty of assault causing serious harm to childcare worker Leanne Flynn, assaulting two other children and a teenager who intervened, and producing the 36 cm kitchen knife used in the attack.

The five-year-old girl was stabbed in the heart. She now requires a wheelchair, remains non-verbal and cannot swallow safely. Bouchaker had denied all charges. Mr Justice Tony Hunt ruled in March 2026 that Bouchaker was fit to stand trial despite a mild cognitive impairment resulting from a 2021 craniotomy.

The judge stated that Bouchaker “undoubtedly had cognitive limitations” but that the impairment did not render him unfit. Bouchaker received an Arabic interpreter and a speech-and-language expert throughout the proceedings. Bouchaker suffered an additional head injury during the incident and received hospital treatment for one month.

Irish police presented 49 CCTV exhibits of his movements on the day of the attack, edited into a one-hour compilation shown to the jury. Hours before the stabbings, Bouchaker ripped up a social-welfare refusal letter. Crowds gathered at the crime scene near Parnell Square on the evening of 23 November 2023, and a protest formed at the Spire on O’Connell Street.

The gathering escalated into disorder that included the burning of a Garda car, buses and a Luas tram, along with shop looting and damage to traffic lights. Gardaí deployed 250 public-order officers—the largest such deployment recorded—with 400 officers sent into the city in total. A cordon was placed around Leinster House.