Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Af­ter six years of im­pris­on­ment, mur­der ac­cused Micay­eel Mo­hammed walked out of the San Fer­nan­do High court a free man yes­ter­day af­ter the State's in­dict­ment against him was quashed.

The 34-year-old Pe­nal man was freed by San Fer­nan­do Third As­sizes judge Ra­jiv Per­sad af­ter he up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion by Mo­hammed's de­fence team to have the in­dict­ment quashed. At­tor­ney Anand Be­har­ry­lal, in­struct­ed by Nico­la Pan­day, ar­gued that the State had in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence against Mo­hammed to war­rant fur­ther pros­e­cu­tion.

Per­sad ruled that on the State's case there was no ev­i­dence to sug­gest that Mo­hammed en­cour­aged or was par­ty to a plan to kill Lochan. Mo­hammed was charged with the Au­gust 9, 2004 mur­der of 58-year-old Syl­van "Whitie" Lochan, his then neigh­bour. Lochan's killing shot to the lime­light in 2004 af­ter a dis­pute over ju­ris­dic­tion arose be­tween the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice and Pe­nal Po­lice. Lochan was found dead in his home a few hours af­ter he con­tact­ed po­lice to re­port a break-in at his home.

As he left the court­room Mo­hammed shout­ed: "Free­dom! Free­dom!"