ZION CLARKE

Zion Clarke was described as calm when he was arrested in connection with the kidnapping and murder of US citizen, Balram “Balo” Maharaj. He was non-violent and he was very co-operative, according to Sgt Wendell Lucas, the main investigator in the case. Lucas, 40, who is now in England doing his bar finals, said Clarke gave the fine details where Maharaj was buried. He said Clarke even took the police and the FBI officials one mile into the Santa Cruz forest to unearth two containers with Maharaj’s remains. Lucas gave evidence before Judge John Bates in the Washington Federal Court on June 22. Seven Trinidadians were found guilty on July 31 of taking Maharaj hostage.

They will be sentenced on February 12, 2010. Clarke said he was asked to look after Maharaj who was in captivity in the forested area off Gran Curacaye Road. After four days and five nights, Clarke told Lucas in a statement that the time had come to remove the victim from the forested area. Clarke said: “We carry Balo down the hill. While we were carrying him, he was trying to talk, but I could not understand what he was saying. When we got to the car, we put him in the back seat. Balo wasn’t looking good to me. When he first came, he could still walk, but when he was leaving we had to carry him. Plus, when Balo came, he did look like he did get beaten. He shoulder was looking blue black, and he mouth did burst, too.” Clarke said after all he had done, he did not see Balo after that night. He didn’t see the men who hired him, and he never got the $5,000 he was promised.

Prior to taking this statement on January 5, 2006, Lucas remembered that FBI agent William Clauss had taken one on January 4. On January 6, Clarke, he said, agreed to take him to the campsite where they were keeping Balo. Clarke led a party of officers to upper Gran Curacaye Road, Santa Cruz. He led the police along a track until they came upon what were two sheds or shacks. On January 7, Clarke took the lawmen back up Gran Curacaye Road to what he said were the burial sites. “He led us into a forested area and said, ‘That is where the barrel...where we buried the barrel with Balo.’ He pointed to another spot a short distance away and said, ‘That is where we buried the cooler with the other parts of Balo.’” Lucas said the area was cordoned off and secured and he left that site.

He said a party of police officers were left at the site to protect the area. The next day, a party of police officers and members of the FBI, returned to that site. Clarke was not present, he was sitting in a vehicle about a mile away and guarded by two policemen. Lucas said the areas pointed out by Clarke were excavated. A blue barrel and a styrofoam cooler were recovered. Lucas made a telephone call and asked the officers to ask Clarke in which one of the receptacles was the head. Clarke responded to the policeman. Under cross-examination by Washington-based attorney Jeffrey O’Toole, Lucas said he never made any promises to Clarke.

“I never told him if he took the responsibility for showing the police where the body was, he would get into protective custody. I never promised that he would be released if he pointed out Wayne Pierre, I never promised he would be released if he said he was involved.” Lucas admitted that the first time he got information on the Maharaj case was from Winston Gittens at the Tunapuna Police Station in November 2005. He was not assigned to the case as yet. He insisted that it was a kidnapping case as Maharaj disappeared since April 2005. “I did not know that when I got the information, I would be the investigator on the case,” Lucas added. The lead investigator said he got to find out about a man called Anderson Straker, commonly referred to as Gypsy’s son.

He told the court that Gypsy was a member of Parliament, and a calypso singer. He said Gypsy was a person who was fairly known around Trinidad. Questioned by attorney, Patrick Donahue, Lucas said he did not know that Winston Gittens had been acting as an informant providing information to law enforcement agencies in Trinidad. He was unaware that Gittens provided information to Crime Stoppers or the police in general. He said when he interviewed Gittens, the suspect did not say if he was present when Maharaj was dismembered. Lucas said he testified at the preliminary inquiry in Trinidad, and in the David Suchit trial in Washington. (Suchit was tried for this offence in Washington in 2007, but acquitted by a jury and returned to Trinidad).

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