Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
Of the thousands of cases determined in the justice system over the past year, two stood out among a long list of many important matters. Both involved police officers.
In one case, six members of a specialised policing unit went on trial for murdering three friends from Moruga in 2011. In the other, a teenage human trafficking victim, who was forced into prostitution, claimed police officers were among her clients.
Both cases ended in November but with very different outcomes.
Moruga triple murder trial
On November 24, Sgt Khemraj Sahadeo and PCs Renaldo Reviero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Juman, and Antonio Ramadin were acquitted of murdering Abigail Johnson, Alana Duncan, and Keron Eccles.
As in all criminal trials, the result brought mixed reactions from those involved in the case.
For the officers, who spent more than 12 years on remand before their case came up for trial, the jury’s decision brought immense relief.
“It was a trying time. Twelve years or 4409 days away from our families,” Sahadeo said, as he and his former colleagues were reunited with their family members on the steps of the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain.
For the victims’ relatives, many of whom attended every hearing of the case after it started before High Court Judge Carla Brown-Antoine in June, the jury’s verdicts were an atrocity.
Agonised, the relatives made their way to the courtroom exit well before the jury foreman delivered verdicts for each of the officers.
Eccles’ mother Geraldine was in disbelief.
“They killed my son. God don’t sleep,” she said.
“Ask the jury how much they get paid,” she added.
When a news team from Guardian Media visited her home in St Mary’s Village, Moruga, the following day, she had still not come to terms with what transpired.
“It hurt. It hurt bad. I could not sleep,” she said.
“Six police officers and nobody found them guilty, none? It is hard. It is hard, and there was evidence to show what they did.”
During the trial, the officers never denied that they shot and killed the trio at the corner of Rochard Douglas Road and Gunness Trace in Barrackpore on July 22, 2011.
Hours before the shooting, Duncan, her then-boyfriend Shumba James, along with James’ two friends, Johnson, and Eccles were liming at several bars near their homes in St Mary’s Village. Before meeting up, James made sure he went to the nearby police post to report as part of his bail conditions for a robbery charge.
Around 7 pm, the friends decided to go to Barrackpore to purchase food. James went with his friends in their car, while Duncan, Johnson and Eccles followed in his (James) car.
As they passed the junction, the officers unleashed a barrage of gunshots on James’ car. James and his friends did not stop on hearing the gunshots and only got a brief glimpse of what was transpiring as they looked behind.
The shooting lasted approximately ten seconds and was partially captured by a CCTV camera from a nearby business. In the footage, shown to the jury, an officer was heard shouting “Don’t move” before gunshots were heard.
The trio was pronounced dead at Princes Town Health Facility almost an hour and a half after the initial shooting.
The response of the victims’ relatives and friends was swift. They surrounded the facility and demanded answers. The officers had to request backup to leave.
Irate relatives and friends did not stop there as they blocked roads in the community for several days following the shooting.
During the trial, lead prosecutor Gilbert Peterson, SC, presented the evidence of two eyewitnesses. Leeladeo Surujbally was purchasing food near the junction when the shooting occurred.
In his statement to police and during the preliminary inquiry, Surujbally claimed he heard one of the officers shout “Shumba you dead tonight” before they opened fire on the car.
Confronted at the trial with CCTV footage which had clear audio that did not reflect his claim, Surujbally admitted he had difficulties remembering the traumatic incident but maintained that he told the truth.
The most contentious witness was WPC Nicole Clement, who was among the last to enter the witness box.
Clement, a relatively junior officer, worked alongside the officers in the San Fernando Robbery Squad for six months before the shooting. She was initially charged alongside them but entered into a plea agreement with the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The murder charges were dropped and she was instead charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice in exchange for her testimony against her colleagues.
While she testified during the preliminary inquiry almost a decade earlier, Clement was deemed a hostile witness at the trial. Citing safety and security concerns, she refused to testify and sat silently for several days as Peterson and the officers’ lawyers Israel Khan, SC, and Ulric Skerritt fired questions at her to no avail.
Her evidence during the inquiry was read to the jury.
Clement claimed her colleagues received instructions from senior officers to apprehend James, who they claimed was wanted for a series of murders and was believed to be “armed and dangerous”.
She claimed that as the car James was known to have used drove past them, her colleagues opened fire and she joined in. She also claimed that Duncan and Eccles survived the initial volley of gunshots and were taken to a remote location off the M2 Ring Road in Woodland, where they were shot again, reloaded into the police vehicle and taken on a slow drive to the health facility.
Clement also detailed the steps she and her former colleagues allegedly took to attempt to cover up their actions including preparing consistent statements and revisiting the crime scene to coordinate their responses to investigators.
In his closing address, Khan described Clement as a pathological liar and referred to the fact that months before the trial, she wrote DPP Roger Gaspard, SC, indicating that she would not testify.
Khan said Clement provided a statement in which she claimed to have been the “mastermind” and threatened her colleagues into executing the two friends after the initial shooting.
“She is crazy. I don’t think anyone here is so crazy as to believe what she said,” he told the court
However, Peterson had more faith in the State’s case.
“She never said that she lied,” he said and called on the jurors to consider the circumstantial evidence, including spent shells found at the second crime scene which he claimed corroborated Clement’s claims.
The jurors took a little over half an hour to return with unanimous not-guilty verdicts for the officers.
It remains to be seen what action, if any, DPP Gaspard is going to take about Clement, whose sentencing for the lesser charge was deferred pending the outcome of her colleagues’ trial.
Less than a week after the trial, her civil lawsuit against the Ministry of National Security was dismissed by High Court Judge Frank Seepersad.
In that case, Clement claimed that while she was in the Justice Protection Programme awaiting the trial, the security detail at the safe house she was being held in was removed in November last year.
Justice Seepersad noted that her case became academic after the trial was completed.
Clement still has a pending case against the DPP’s Office over its alleged failure to continue plea discussions with her about financial support after the trial.
While the outcome of the case remains a major disappointment for the trio’s relatives, they can now only hope to find some solace in their pending wrongful death cases filed against the State seeking $2 million in compensation for each.
When the case went to trial before Justice Kevin Ramcharan in 2018, the State offered no evidence to challenge it. However, Justice Ramcharan recused himself before determining the case based on the fact that the relatives’ lawyer, Keith Scotland, was a member of the legal team representing him in a drunk driving case.
The case has since been reassigned.
First human trafficking conviction
In early November, Tunapuna resident Anthony Michael Smith made history when he became the first person convicted of human trafficking in T&T. However, Smith was not present for sentencing as he absconded before the trial ended before Justice Geoffrey Henderson.
He was convicted in absentia for five charges under the Trafficking in Persons Act and sentenced to 15 years for each.
Smith is to serve the sentences concurrently, if and when he is eventually apprehended.
The outcome of the case, which was held in-camera to protect the identity of the victim, was announced by National Security Fitzgerald Hinds on November 3. While Hinds lauded the case, Lawrence Hinds, the head of his ministry’s Electronic Monitoring Unit was at the press conference to explain how Smith seemingly managed to evade justice.
Smith was initially charged with 21 human trafficking offences in 2016 and remanded. At the end of his preliminary inquiry a little over a year later, he was committed to stand trial for five of the charges and granted bail with conditions including house arrest and electronic monitoring.
Before the trial started, Smith made an application to vary his bail conditions so he could work. He was fitted with another monitoring device but after two days of evidence in the trial before Justice Henderson, Smith disappeared.
Hinds detailed the steps taken after Smith tampered with the device at 6.32 am on September 24.
“Following our standard operating procedures and all relevant checks, we initiated the police response mechanism after all attempts to contact him failed. That proved negative, as there were no signs of Mr Smith. The police continued their actions based on what they had to do and Mr Smith was no longer seen,” he said.
A press release from the Judiciary issued hours after the press conference provided more insight into Smith’s crimes.
Smith came under the radar of the T&T Police Service (TTPS)’s Counter Trafficking Unit (CTU) after detectives found the victim’s passport in a building in east Trinidad used by foreign sex workers.
The victim was eventually located.
The teen, who came from a single-mother home with four siblings, claimed that in 2015 she left school to look for a job to assist her family. She met Smith when she responded to a classified ad in a daily newspaper.
During an interview with Smith, she was told that she would need to take off all her clothes to be photographed and the true nature of the work being offered was selling sexual services.
She declined the offer and was instead offered a job as a bartender in Smith’s business and subsequently given a place to stay in east Trinidad.
“Sometime after, Anthony Smith pleaded with the 16-year-old to help him with an important client, as he had no other available girls that day,” the release said.
“She relented with her first client, a foreign national staying at a city hotel in the waterfront area of Port of Spain.”
The teen claimed she was forced to continue sex work while attending school part-time and was subjected to physical, emotional and sexual abuse by Smith.
In August 2015, she managed to leave with some of her belongings that could fit in two bags.
“She was forced to leave behind her puppy and her other belongings including her passport,” the release said.
In sentencing Smith, Justice Henderson ordered that transcripts of the proceedings be sent to the CTU as evidence in the case revealed that the victim’s clients included several police officers.
In an exclusive interview with Guardian Media, Smith’s girlfriend claimed the victim was in a relationship with Smith before they met. The woman said Smith was an “absolutely wonderful person” who took care of her when no one else cared for her.
“There is literally nothing bad that can be said,” she said.
“They were making it seem as though this case was very important, so why after eight years it is now important to you all. It should have been important from the first day,” she added.
Murder convicts
re-sentenced
Despite perennial issues with staffing partly due to key long-serving staff members taking up local and regional judicial appointments, the DPP’s Office was still able to complete the re-sentencing of more than a dozen murder convicts over the past year.
The convicts had benefited from the landmark Privy Council ruling in the Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan, which only permits executions within five years of conviction. The death sentences they received upon conviction were commuted to life imprisonment.
They applied to be re-sentenced under another landmark judgment last year, in which the Privy Council ruled that murder convicts who can no longer be executed should receive definitive terms of imprisonment as opposed to blanket life sentences.
In cases that came up for re-sentencing this year, many of the convicts were freed after serving almost 30 years in prison. A handful did not secure freedom immediately but were instead told the remaining period they had to serve before being released.
Those released included the country’s longest-serving death row inmate, Wenceslaus James who was convicted of killing a taxi driver with a sledgehammer during a botched robbery in 1992 and served a little over 31 years in prison.
Several of the cases involved domestic violence.
Parbatee Dass served a little over 28 years for ordering a “hit” on her estranged abusive husband that also resulted in his new love interest being murdered. Amir Mowlah, who chopped his wife to death during a heated argument over his infidelity, was freed after serving more than three decades in prison.
DPP under fire for unoccupied building
DPP Gaspard came under criticism this year not for his office’s performance in the courts but for failure to relocate from the Winsure Building on Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain.
It was revealed that since 2019, the Government had spent almost $55 million to rent and outfit a more spacious building on Park Street.
Gaspard reportedly initially agreed to move to the building but he and his staff later refused to occupy it based on a Special Branch report that raised security concerns.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley was asked to comment on the issue several times over the year.
At a post-Cabinet press briefing in late October, he said: “I must say, I’m disappointed, hugely disappointed.”
“I think something has to be radically wrong where the Parliament, in enquiring about the performance of a certain government department can be told over and over that the reason why he (DPP) can’t function is because you don’t have staff. And the reason they don’t have staff is because ‘It have nowhere to put them’.”
Responding to questions in Parliament, Attorney General Reginald Armour, SC, said that the DPP’s Office will remain at its current location with temporary accommodation being provided for additional staff until a long-term solution, which is mutually acceptable, is found.
“Consideration is being given to a site on which a proper building will be built out for a number of legal staff, and hopefully, the DPP, if that is actualised, will agree to move there,” he said.
$20 million case
with a missing file
On January 30, High Court Master Martha Alexander ordered $2.1 million in compensation for nine men who were acquitted of the kidnapping and murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman in 2016.
Armour was on an official overseas trip at the time and called a press conference upon his return. He claimed the outcome was due to the case file going missing after being served on a staff member of the Solicitor General’s Office in 2020.
Armour appointed former High Court Judge Stanley John and retired Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Pamela Schullera-Hinds to conduct a probe.
In late June, John and Hinds delivered their report in which they made several recommendations, including the complete restructuring of the Civil Law Department (CLD) of the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs (AGLA).
Armour also retained Senior Counsel Rolston Nelson as he promised to attempt to have the outcome reversed.
He made good on his promise when on December 6, High Court Judge Joan Charles upheld an application to set aside the default
judgment. Justice Charles agreed that the court filings were not properly served on the AG’s Office as required under the State Liability and Proceedings Act.
Immediately following the ruling, the men’s legal team filed an urgent appeal seeking to overturn the ruling as it meant their case was dismissed as it could not be refiled and served outside the four-year statutory limit.
They also claimed the ruling would have an unforeseen effect on all litigation filed against the State as it was the first time such an issue with service was raised and upheld.
The appeal is yet to come up for hearing.
State wins US case
over Piarco Airport
In March, there were two major developments in corruption cases related to the construction of Piarco International Airport.
The month started with DPP Gaspard discontinuing charges against former prime minister Basdeo Panday, his wife Oma, former Cabinet minister Carlos John and businessman Ishwar Galbaransingh.
The charges related to a £25,000 bribe allegedly received by Panday and his wife and allegedly paid by John and Galbaransingh as an inducement concerning the airport project.
Gaspard said his decision was based on the low probability of securing convictions in the case. He explained that several key witnesses had died and one main witness is now elderly and lives abroad.
The decision brought relief for Panday who said: “This was a burden hanging on my shoulders and my whole personality for 18 years. Now that it is over I have to reconstitute my life.
“I suppose this was a political prosecution. It seems that they cannot forgive me for building the finest airport in the Caribbean.”
Days later, Gaspard announced plans for the three remaining cases which had been before the courts for almost two decades.
“I have made no determination except that we are proceeding with the rest,” he said.
Pressed further, Gaspard admitted that his position might change based on evolving circumstances.
Weeks later, a jury in Miami upheld the Government’s civil asset recovery case related to two construction contracts and a maintenance contract for the airport.
The jury ordered former government minister Brian Kuei Tung, businessman Steve Ferguson, and United States businessman Raul Guiterrez Jr to pay US$131.5 million in compensation.
The final judgment was based on the US$32,385,988 in compensation by the jury, which had to be tripled as the racketeering charges were filed under the US’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act (RICO).
US Judge Reemberto Diaz, who previously disqualified AG Armour from the case for downplaying his role in briefly representing Kuei Tung, upheld the jury’s decision.
The trio has since appealed the decision.
Former Chief Magistrate wins forced resignation case
On October 12, former chief magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar secured her first legal victory in her lawsuit over being pressured to resign as a High Court Judge by Chief Justice Ivor Archie and the Judicial and Legal Service Commission (JLSC).
Ayers-Caesar was appointed a High Court Judge in April 2017 but two weeks later, she resigned from the post amid public criticism over the 52 cases she had left unfinished when she took up the promotion.
Ayers-Caesar filed a lawsuit in which she claimed she was coerced into resigning.
Appellate Judges Allan Mendonca, Nolan Bereaux, and Alice Yorke-Soo Hon overturned the decision of Justice David Harris, who previously rejected the case. The judges wrote separate but consistent judgments in which they criticised the JLSC, chaired by Archie, for improperly and illegally pressuring Ayers-Caesar to resign.
Her lawyer Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, said he was deeply troubled by what transpired in the case and the fact that his client had to utilise every legal redress available to clear her name.
He welcomed a final appeal to the Privy Council, which was filed by Archie and the JLSC.
“I think this is the kind of appeal that the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will want to hear very quickly,” Maharaj said.
CJ Archie calls for more
HR autonomy
Days before the Appeal Court delivered its ruling in Ayers-Caesar’s case, CJ Archie renewed his call for the Judiciary to be given more freedom to hire specialised staff.
“In the same way that we cannot fight modern crime with old methodologies, tools and training, we cannot run a modern court system with antiquated structures and staffing models,” he said.
Archie noted that previous pleas were ignored.
“This is not the first time I am doing this publicly either, but it appears that the right people have not really listened up to now,” he said.
Asylum seekers can
be deported
Over the past few years, the courts have been inundated with litigation by Venezuelan migrants seeking to block deportation for breaching immigration laws.
In July, Justice Frank Seepersad ruled that the United Nations’ 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which this country signed on to in November 2000, does not apply. He ruled that it had to be incorporated into local laws by Parliament to be applicable.
Since the decision, it has been cited by the State in numerous cases from migrants.
The ruling is being appealed.
No more preliminary inquiries
The year ended with the long-awaited proclamation of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act 2011 which replaces preliminary inquiries for serious criminal offences before magistrates with sufficiency hearings before High Court Masters.
The step coupled with new Criminal Procedure Rules, additional courtrooms for criminal trials as well as more judges are expected to address chronic backlogs in the criminal justice system.
The proclamation on December 12 followed a comprehensive training programme for stakeholders.
