Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Six po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of mur­der­ing three friends in Moru­ga in 2011, will have to re­main on re­mand as their tri­al be­gins to­day. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day, the Court of Ap­peal dis­missed a con­sol­i­dat­ed ap­peal brought by the six of­fi­cers and an­oth­er man, Keros Mar­tin, who is ac­cused of an un­re­lat­ed mur­der. 

It was a split de­ci­sion with Ap­pel­late Judges Nolan Bereaux and Maria Wil­son agree­ing that the Court of Ap­peal did not have the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear ap­peals over judges’ de­ci­sions not to grant mur­der ac­cused bail. Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh pro­vid­ed a dis­sent­ing judg­ment in which he ex­pressed the view that he and his Court of Ap­peal col­leagues had the ju­ris­dic­tion to en­ter­tain such ap­peals. 

Jus­tice Boodoos­ingh al­so ruled that the judge, who de­nied the of­fi­cers bail, ex­er­cised his dis­cre­tion wrong­ly based on their analy­sis of the le­gal is­sues and facts in the case. 

He ruled that he would have grant­ed each of the of­fi­cers $700,000 bail and would have re­mit­ted Mar­tin’s case for fur­ther con­sid­er­a­tion. 

Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, and An­to­nio Ra­madin are ac­cused of mur­der­ing Alana Dun­can, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Abi­gail John­son on Ju­ly 22, 2011. 

Dun­can, 27, of Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, Ec­cles, 29, and 20-year-old John­son, both of St Mary’s Vil­lage, Moru­ga, were in Dun­can’s ve­hi­cle when it was stopped by the of­fi­cers at the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore. 

Ini­tial re­ports claimed that the friends shot at the of­fi­cers, who re­turned fire. 

A fe­male col­league was ini­tial­ly charged along­side her for­mer col­leagues from the San Fer­nan­do Rob­bery Squad but the charge was dropped and re­placed with a less­er charge of con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of jus­tice af­ter she agreed to tes­ti­fy against them. 

In Ju­ly 2013, the of­fi­cers were com­mit­ted to stand tri­al at the end of their pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry. 

Rel­a­tives of the three friends brought a law­suit against the State over their wrong­ful deaths and are each seek­ing over $2 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion. 

The case went to tri­al in 2018 but had to be re­as­signed to an­oth­er judge af­ter Jus­tice Kevin Ram­cha­ran re­cused him­self from the case based on the fact that the fam­i­lies’ lawyer Kei­th Scot­land rep­re­sent­ed him in an un­re­lat­ed mat­ter. 

The case was re­as­signed to an­oth­er High Court Judge but was not de­ter­mined as he was sub­se­quent­ly el­e­vat­ed to the Court of Ap­peal. That case is still pend­ing. 

The po­lice of­fi­cers’ case is list­ed for tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine to­day. 

On Tues­day, Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, who is lead­ing the of­fi­cers’ le­gal team, took is­sue with the O’Meara Ju­di­cial Cen­tre be­ing utilised for the tri­al. 

While Khan ad­mit­ted that a no­tice in the Gazette was is­sued on Mon­day des­ig­nat­ing the cen­tre as a lo­ca­tion for Supreme Court mat­ters, he not­ed that the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Act on­ly al­lowed tri­als in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do. 

“Even the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) can­not trans­fer this mat­ter to Ari­ma or Siparia. There is a la­cu­na in the law and the Ju­di­cia­ry can­not fix it by pro­claim­ing a Gazette,” Khan said. 

He al­so chal­lenged Jus­tice Brown-An­toine to hold him in con­tempt of court for his threat to with­hold par­tic­i­pa­tion. 

In a press re­lease is­sued on Mon­day, the Ju­di­cia­ry not­ed that the tri­al was set af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with pros­e­cu­tors and the of­fi­cers’ de­fence team since the case was as­signed to Jus­tice Brown-An­toine in Jan­u­ary 2019. 

“Since that time, the mat­ter has been the sub­ject of case man­age­ment by the judge and mas­ter with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of both the pros­e­cu­tion and de­fence,” the re­lease said.

“In this case, the tri­al date was fixed at a hear­ing on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 27, 2023, with the agree­ment of both the pros­e­cu­tion and the de­fence,” it added. 

The of­fi­cers are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ul­ric Sker­ritt. Mar­tin was rep­re­sent­ed by Criston J Williams, Blaine So­bri­an, and Jade Mar­tinez. 

Nigel Pil­grim and As­sis­tant DPP Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal rep­re­sent­ed the DPP’s Of­fice. 

The Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al was rep­re­sent­ed by Fyard Ho­sein, SC, Rishi Dass, SC, and Nicol Yee Fung.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion, which pro­vid­ed sub­mis­sions on the ap­peal as it sets a le­gal prece­dent, was rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Dou­glas Mendes, Ra­jiv Per­sad, John Heath, and at­tor­ney Pe­ter Carter. 

The Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion’s le­gal team in­clud­ed Daniel Khan and Ula Nathai-Lutch­man.