Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Two Vista­bel­la res­i­dents have been com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for the 2008 mur­der of Joanne Gas­pard, sis­ter of Di­rec­tor Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard. An­tho­ny Sankar, 28, and Mar­cus Gre­sham, 24, of Lam­bie Street were or­dered to face tri­al in the High Court af­ter Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton ruled that a pri­ma fa­cie case had been made out against them.

Fe­male rel­a­tives of the men, who were present in court, broke down in tears af­ter Welling­ton com­mit­ted them to stand tri­al. The Gas­pard mat­ter was one of the first lo­cal mat­ters to use DNA ev­i­dence as part of the pros­e­cu­tion's case. DNA ex­perts, Craig Davies and Em­ma Jayne Wes­t­a­cott, both of LGC Foren­sics, Birch­wood Park, War­ring­ton, Eng­land, tes­ti­fied dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry.

Gas­pard, 36, a moth­er of two and se­nior Cus­toms Clerk, died on No­vem­ber 13, 2008 af­ter she was al­leged­ly thrown off the bal­cony of her three-storey home in San Fer­nan­do. The State's case was led by Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, in­struct­ed by Chris Se­lochan. The men were ar­rest­ed by Homi­cide de­tec­tive Sgt Wazir Ali.

On Mon­day, Ali died of a mas­sive heart at­tack. Court pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Hu­bert Skel­ly in­formed Welling­ton that Ali was now de­ceased. At­tor­ney John Heath ap­peared for Gre­sham, while Sub­has Pan­day rep­re­sent­ed Sankar.