Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
The defence attorney for six police officers on trial for murdering three friends from Moruga in 2011, has revealed that their former colleague recently claimed that she was in fact the mastermind of the crime.
The strange development in the case came on Wednesday as Senior Counsel Israel Khan was given the opportunity to question WPC Nicole Clement, who was initially charged with the triple murder before being made a State witness in exchange for her testimony against her former colleagues.
On Monday, Clement was deemed a hostile witness by High Court Judge Carla Brown-Antoine after she refused to testify due to alleged “safety and security concerns”.
Clement’s 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 to the jury.
In his cross-examination, which followed a similar exercise from lead prosecutor Gilbert Peterson, SC, Khan attempted to quiz Clement over her evidence in the inquiry as well as a contradictory statement she provided to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in April before the trial commenced.
The process was more of a monologue than an interrogation as Clement sat silently with her hands crossed in front of her for several hours as she declined to answer any of Peterson and Khan’s questions.
Khan stated that in her recent statement, Clement claimed that after she and her colleagues shot a car with Abigail Johnson, Kerron Eccles, and Alana Duncan in it at corner of Rochard Douglas Road and Gunness Trace in Barrackpore on July 22, 2011, her colleagues sought to take Eccles and one of the women, who survived the initial shooting, to the hospital.
He claimed that she said that while en route, she demanded that they divert into a dirt track off the M2 Ring Road.
He noted that she said that she threatened her colleagues to take the two survivors out of the car and place them on the ground.
“Did you say I asked them to put them on the ground and finish them?” Khan said, as he pointed out that Clement claimed that they (her colleagues) were under duress.
Khan described Clement’s initial testimony against her former colleagues as “false, sinister, wicked, evil and diabolical”.
“You concocted and fabricated this statement in order to extricate yourself from this trial,” Khan said.
He suggested that while the first statement was intended to avoid being prosecuted, the recent statement was provided to protect her from being outed as a liar during the trial.
“This was so no one can expose you as a blatant liar,” Khan said, as he called on the 12-member jury to disregard both sets of her claims.
“These things never happened. That is a figment of your imagination,” Khan said.
None of Khan’s questions and accusations were sufficient to unsettle Clement, who maintained her stoic state throughout.
During his opening address in the trial, Peterson claimed that the officers were targeting Duncan’s common-law husband Shumba James as senior officers indicated that he was wanted for a series of murders.
James, who testified earlier in the trial, narrowly escaped as he was in a friend’s vehicle while the three friends followed in the Nissan B15 that he was known to have used.
In her original testimony, Clement admitted that after the shooting, she and her colleagues were placed on seven days leave.
She claimed that during the period, she and her colleagues had several clandestine meetings during which they sought to ensure that their individual reports on the shooting were consistent.
The meetings were held at several locations including San Fernando Hill and at the initial crime scene in Barrackpore.
“That is the normal police culture when things like this happen...Everyone sticks together and writes the same report...One squad. One song,” she said.
Sgt Khemraj Sahadeo and PCs Renaldo Reviero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Juman, Antonio Ramadin are also represented by Ulric Skerritt, and Arissa Maharaj.
The State is also being represented by Elaine Greene, Giselle Ferguson-Heller and Katiesha Ambrose-Persadsingh.
The trial is scheduled to resume on Thursday morning.