A bla­tant liar and a patho­log­i­cal liar. 

These were the words used by de­fence at­tor­ney Is­rael Khan, SC, to de­scribe two of the State’s main wit­ness­es in the tri­al of six po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of mur­der­ing three friends from Moru­ga in 2011. 

Pre­sent­ing his clos­ing ad­dress to the 12-mem­ber ju­ry be­fore High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Khan first aimed at Lee­ladeo Su­ru­jbal­ly, who was pur­chas­ing food at a road­side restau­rant at the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore when the car Abi­gail John­son, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Alana Dun­can were dri­ving in were shot at by the of­fi­cers on Ju­ly 22, 2011. 

De­scrib­ing Su­ru­jbal­ly as a bla­tant liar, Khan claimed that his tes­ti­mo­ny over what tran­spired was con­tra­dict­ed by CCTV footage of the in­ci­dent, which was cap­tured by cam­eras at a near­by au­to parts deal­er. 

Khan point­ed out that while Su­ru­jbal­ly claimed that he heard one of the of­fi­cers shout “Shum­ba (Dun­can’s com­mon-law hus­band Shum­ba James) you dead tonight” be­fore they opened fire on the car the trio was dri­ving in, the footage, which had clear au­dio, did not re­flect such. 

Af­ter the footage was re­played for the ju­ry, Khan al­so not­ed that a sin­gle gun­shot fol­lowed by one con­tin­u­ous vol­ley of gun­shots was heard de­spite Su­ru­jbal­ly claim­ing that there was a pause in the shoot­ing be­fore it re­sumed af­ter he saw a woman emerge from the ve­hi­cle. 

“The au­dio vi­su­al record­ing is not made-up ev­i­dence. It is the record­ing of the truth,” Khan said. 

Khan point­ed out that while tes­ti­fy­ing in the tri­al, Su­ru­jbal­ly ad­mit­ted that he had dif­fi­cul­ties in re­mem­ber­ing the trau­mat­ic in­ci­dent though he main­tained that his claims in his state­ment to the po­lice and dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry of the case were the truth. 

He not­ed that James, and his friends Mar­lon Fi­garo and An­drel Richards, who were fol­low­ing the trio in the ve­hi­cle James was known to have used, were un­able to say whether the trio shot at the of­fi­cers, who re­turned fire in self-de­fence, as they all ad­mit­ted that they heard the gun­shots while dri­ving away and did not clear­ly wit­ness it de­spite turn­ing around. 

Khan spent a con­sid­er­able por­tion of his ad­dress on the ev­i­dence of WPC Nicole Clement, who was ini­tial­ly charged along­side her for­mer col­leagues be­fore be­ing made a State wit­ness. 

Clement was deemed a hos­tile wit­ness as she re­fused to tes­ti­fy due to “safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty” con­cerns. Her tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, in which she claimed that two of the friends sur­vived the ini­tial bar­rage of gun­shots on their ve­hi­cle but were ex­e­cut­ed at a sec­ond lo­ca­tion, was read in­to ev­i­dence. 

Khan said, “She is not a bla­tant liar ... She is a patho­log­i­cal liar.”

“She is a mad woman. She is not in­sane. She is men­tal­ly im­bal­anced,” Khan added. 

Khan sug­gest­ed that Clement on­ly agreed to im­pli­cate her col­leagues af­ter she was charged with the crime.

Not­ing that Clement had five years of ser­vice and had joined the of­fi­cers’ spe­cialised unit two months be­fore the shoot­ing, Khan ques­tioned why her col­leagues would have risked killing the trio and at­tempt­ing to cov­er up the crime in her pres­ence. 

“If they had to kill them, would they do it in the pres­ence of this la­dy?” Khan said.

“Com­mon sense will lead you to the truth here,” he added. 

Khan sug­gest­ed that Clement had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to plant a rub­ber glove and spent shells at a lo­ca­tion off the M2 Ring Road in Wood­land, where she claimed Ec­cles and one of the women were ex­e­cut­ed. 

“She is crazy. I don’t think any­one here is so crazy as to be­lieve what she said,” he said. 

Khan al­so re­ferred to the fact that ear­li­er this year, Clement wrote a let­ter to Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, in which she in­di­cat­ed that she would not tes­ti­fy in the tri­al. He al­so men­tioned that she pro­vid­ed a state­ment in which she claimed to have been the “mas­ter­mind” and threat­ened her col­leagues to ex­e­cute the two friends af­ter the ini­tial shoot­ing. 

Khan sug­gest­ed that the let­ter and at­tached state­ment were a sub­terfuge to con­vince Gas­pard to not let her tes­ti­fy. “This la­dy can write a dra­ma play ... She is ly­ing on her­self so she would not come here to an­swer ques­tions,” Khan said. 

In his clos­ing ad­dress, at­tor­ney Ul­ric Sker­ritt sought to sug­gest the rea­son Clement chose to im­pli­cate the men. “She had a young child who she knew she was not go­ing to see grow up. Some of you are moth­ers. You will un­der­stand,” Sker­ritt said. 

He stat­ed that nu­mer­ous gaps in Clement’s sto­ry were not filled by pros­e­cu­tors in­clud­ing how she was able to re­mem­ber the lo­ca­tion of the sec­ond crime scene.

Sker­ritt al­so point­ed out that the au­top­sy on Ec­cles’ body showed that he was shot on his right side as op­posed to his front as claimed by Clement. “When you make stuff up, there are a lot of things that are left un­ex­plained,” Sker­ritt said. 

Sker­ritt is ex­pect­ed to com­plete his ad­dress when the tri­al re­sumes to­day. He will be fol­lowed by lead pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC. 

Jus­tice Brown-An­toine is then ex­pect­ed to sum­marise the ev­i­dence and le­gal is­sues in the case to the ju­ry over three days next week be­fore they are al­lowed to de­lib­er­ate on the of­fi­cers’ guilt or in­no­cence. 

Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, An­to­nio Ra­madin are al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Aris­sa Ma­haraj. The State is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Elaine Greene, Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller and Katiesha Am­brose-Per­sads­ingh.