Fran­cis Joseph

Al­le­ga­tions of con­spir­a­cy and a cov­er-up have been made against Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gilbert Reyes and re­tired po­lice of­fi­cers, Leon An­tho­ny and Win­ston Stew­art, by a wit­ness at a coro­ner's in­quest in­to the death of a 24-year-old man five years ago. As a re­sult, Coro­ner Nali­ni Singh, pre­sid­ing in Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court, is­sued sum­mons­es for the three of­fi­cers to at­tend court. When they ap­peared yes­ter­day, Singh said the al­le­ga­tions were so se­ri­ous, that she had ad­vised them to seek le­gal ad­vice be­fore the in­quest could re­sume. Singh is pre­sid­ing over the in­quest in­to the death of Naz­im Chris­t­ian, who was al­leged­ly shot dead by po­lice on Mari­quette Street, East Dry Riv­er, on May 4, 2005. The con­duct of four po­lice of­fi­cers: Sgt Ter­rence Roy, and PCs Steele, Bentick and Bald­win, has been called in­to ques­tion, and they are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Is­rael Khan, SC, and Ul­ric Sker­ritt. On the last oc­ca­sion in De­cem­ber, Er­i­ca John, of Mari­quette Street, gave ev­i­dence at the in­quest.

LEFT: ?Coro­ner Nali­ni Singh

Pho­tos: KEI­TH MATTHEWS

She gave a state­ment to then Supt Leon An­tho­ny at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing on May 5, 2005. In court, she was asked by the coro­ner if she saw the man who shot Chris­t­ian, and she point­ed to PC Bentick, who was sit­ting on a bench in the court­room. Un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, John said con­trary to what was con­tained in her state­ment, she could iden­ti­fy the shoot­er. She in­sist­ed that what was writ­ten in her state­ment (that she could not iden­ti­fy the shoot­er) was in­sert­ed by the po­lice. As a re­sult of her tes­ti­mo­ny, Singh halt­ed the in­quest and sum­moned Reyes, An­tho­ny and Stew­art. Yes­ter­day, the three of­fi­cers stood be­fore the coro­ner, and she ex­plained why she had them in court. Speak­ing di­rect­ly to Reyes, Singh said Er­i­ca John in­formed the court that she had a meet­ing with Reyes in his of­fice. She told Reyes she had wit­nessed her son be­ing beat­en by sol­diers and po­lice­men, and that she al­so wit­nessed when Chris­t­ian was shot.

Singh con­tin­ued: "Ms John said you (Reyes) told her that she could on­ly talk about the beat­ing and not about the shoot­ing death. I have sum­moned you here to warn you that your con­duct is be­ing af­fect­ed." The coro­ner then turned to Stew­art and An­tho­ny: "Jivonne John and his moth­er, Er­i­ca John, went to the po­lice sta­tion and told you what the po­lice had done. They said they would be able to iden­ti­fy the shoot­er. "You told them it would not be in­clud­ed in their state­ment. They were of the firm be­lief of what they told you and which is not in their state­ments. "In fact, it is the com­plete op­po­site. Your in­ter­est is now be­ing af­fect­ed." Singh said she was giv­ing the of­fi­cers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to seek le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion if they wished. "This is not a pre-de­ter­mi­na­tion of the mat­ter. What the wit­ness­es are say­ing are that you tried to pre­vent them from giv­ing the ev­i­dence, and to pre­vent them from say­ing what they had seen."

Khan in­ter­vened: "What these wit­ness­es are say­ing is that the of­fi­cers per­vert­ed the course of pub­lic jus­tice. I think the gov­ern­ment should pro­vide lawyers for them in this mat­ter." Reyes stat­ed: "This is a se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tion made against me and the oth­er of­fi­cers, I would need to seek le­gal ad­vice." Singh ad­journed the mat­ter to Feb­ru­ary 22.