Irishman charged with murder of Kirsty Ward after she was strangled to death in Spanish hotel

An Irishman has been charged with the murder of his south Dublin girlfriend and warned he could be caged for more than two decades if convicted.

If found guilty, Spanish public prosecutors will seek a 21-year prison sentence for Keith Byrne for strangling mum-of-one Kirsty Ward at their Costa Dorada holiday hotel. The 32-year-old remains on remand in jail following his arrest 16 months ago.

On Tuesday, it emerged that Dubliner Byrne had been formally charged after a long-running criminal probe by a specialist gender violence investigating judge as the details of the public prosecution case against him were released for the first time.

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A five-page prosecution indictment submitted to the Spanish courts accuses Byrne of strangling Kirsty to death with a hair straightener power cord hours after she dumped him following a row in their hotel room. They claim he acted with the intention of killing the 36-year-old because he couldn’t accept the end of their eight-month relationship.

And they allege the Irishman, who had been living in Duleek, Co Meath, took advantage of his “superior strength” and the fact his alleged victim had no easy escape from their room at the four-star Magnolia Hotel in Salou near the east coast city of Tarragona to prevent her from defending herself. Byrne insisted soon after his arrest over the July 2, 2023 killing that he was innocent, claiming he found Kirsty lying prone with a ligature round her neck and tried to revive her in the doorway of their room.

Outlining their version of events on the day of the killing, which they said occurred after a deterioration in Kirsty’s relationship with Byrne, Tarragona-based public prosecutors said: “During the holiday period which began on June 30 2023 and was due to last a week, the climate of conflict and disengagement between the accused and the victim continued.

“On July 2 2023, after a new row that afternoon in their hotel room, she decided to end their relationship, following which the accused man left. About 9pm the same day, he returned to the hotel and had another row with the victim in their hotel room.

“During that row the accused, unwilling to accept the break-up, and with the aim of causing death or knowing that was a possibility, got hold of the power cable of a hair straightener, put it round the victim’s neck and immediately pulled it tight, strangling her and causing her death by mechanical asphyxiation.”

They added in the indictment that the drink and drugs Kirsty had consumed also affected her ability to defend herself: “The accused, when he strangled his victim, did so taking advantage of the privacy of their hotel room and his superior physical strength," the indictment read.

“She was also under the effects of a prior consumption of alcohol, cocaine, Benzoylecgonine and Lidocaine, which prevented her from defending herself in equal conditions, leaving her unable to do anything to avoid her death.”

Public prosecutors are accusing Byrne of aggravated murder and not simple homicide under Spanish law because of his alleged execution of the crime in a way or with means that left the victim defenceless. As well as a 21-year prison sentence if convicted as charged at trial, they are demanding he pay Kirsty’s teenage child, 14 at the time she died, €150,000 in compensation and €100,000 to her mother.

No date for the trial, now expected to take place next year and before Byrne's two years of custody are up, has yet been set. Lawyers acting for Kirsty’s family are also expected to prosecute him alongside the Spanish state in the same case. The punishment they are seeking on conviction is not known.

It emerged following Byrne’s Spanish arrest that he was wanted in England by Royal Military Police for going AWOL after he left for Ireland in 2017. Reports in Ireland in March said Spanish prosecutors intended to interview at least two of his former partners about assisting the case by giving background information about him.

One of these women previously claimed in an interview with the Irish Independent that Byrne had tried to strangle her in an incident at a property in Co Meath a number of years ago. After Kirsty’s alleged murder, he was remanded in custody after appearing before a special court in Tarragona that deals with violence against women in a closed hearing.

The soldier, who served in the Irish Guards and Parachute Regiment, claimed he found his partner dead with a cord around her neck when he returned to their hotel room.

Saying he had gone back to pick up his passport and suitcase after a previous argument when they had decided to split up, Byrne insisted: “She had been dead for some time and was so cold. I never felt cold like that before. I just can’t get it out of my head. I took the cord off and screamed for help and some British tourists next door rushed over.

"The man then said, 'Let me take over' and started giving her CPR as well. I kept screaming ‘Please come back, baby, please I love you, please don’t go’. Now I am being accused of killing her, but I have never been arrested in all my life.”

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