Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Os­mond Ba­boolal ap­peared in the Princes Town Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day, ac­cused of at­tempt­ing to mur­der stu­dents Sher­e­na Mo­hammed and Bran­don Pa­ha­l­ad. Ba­boolal, 27, of Williamsville, stood be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate In­drani Ce­de­no, charged with the in­dictable of­fences laid by Cpl Ian Revero. He was re­mand­ed to the St Ann's men­tal hos­pi­tal for ob­ser­va­tion and the mat­ter was ad­journed to Feb­ru­ary 22. Ba­boolal and his sis­ter sur­vived af­ter no­to­ri­ous drug lord Dole Chadee had or­dered a gang to kill four mem­bers of their fam­i­ly in 1994. Chadee and eight mem­bers of his gang were found guilty and sub­se­quent­ly hanged for the Ba­boolal mur­ders. Yes­ter­day, when Ba­boolal's name was called in Princes Town First Mag­is­trate's Court at 11.25 am, Ce­de­no asked: "Isn't he one of the (her voice trailed off.) I re­mem­ber him, as a child. I dealt with his case in 1994, in the mat­ter of cus­tody." She asked his age and po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Zamsheed Mo­hammed said 27. "Ah, yes, he would have been about 12 at the time," she said.

At­tor­ney Anslem Lender, led by Richard Valere, ap­peared for Ba­boolal. The mat­ter was stood down as Lender said he need­ed to get fur­ther in­struc­tions from Ba­boolal. The case was re­called around 11.55 am when the charges were read. It is al­leged that on Feb­ru­ary 9, at Guaracara Road, Williamsville, Ba­boolal at­tempt­ed to mur­der Pa­ha­l­ad and Sher­e­na Mo­hammed. He was not called up­on to plead. Sgt Mo­hammed ob­ject­ed to bail. "This young man needs to be sep­a­rat­ed from so­ci­ety whether (he) is sent to St Ann's or re­mand­ed to Gold­en Grove," he said. "He can­not be al­lowed to walk the streets to­day or to­mor­row...He's dan­ger­ous, very dan­ger­ous." The pros­e­cu­tor said Sher­e­na, 14, re­mained ward­ed at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in se­ri­ous but sta­ble con­di­tion, and Pa­ha­l­ad was dis­charged. The pros­e­cu­tor said he did not wish to go too much in­to the ev­i­dence of the case.

"The cir­cum­stances are alarm­ing...These two chil­dren, 12 and 14 years, were at 7.20 am, await­ing trans­porta­tion (to go to school) in the vicin­i­ty of their homes," when, it is al­leged, the ac­cused walked up to these in­no­cent chil­dren and start­ed chop­ping them on their heads," he said. "By all in­di­ca­tions this act ap­pears sense­less." He said Ba­boolal had two pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions in 2004, in ad­di­tion to two pend­ing mat­ters which were to be ver­i­fied. Valere strong­ly re­ject­ed the po­lice pros­e­cu­tor's rea­son­ing. It would be the first of sev­er­al loud ex­changes be­tween the two. He said while he un­der­stood the pros­e­cu­tor's point on the stu­dents' lives be­ing threat­ened, he did not be­lieve it was suf­fi­cient to refuse bail, since Mo­hammed was be­ing swayed by emo­tions. Ce­de­no asked if there was any pre­vi­ous al­ter­ca­tion be­tween Ba­boolal and the stu­dents. "Ab­solute­ly noth­ing to in­di­cate any­thing pre­vi­ous..." Mo­hammed said. This prompt­ed a heat­ed ex­change be­tween the two, caus­ing Ce­de­no to in­ter­ject.

She said: "In the in­ter­est of jus­tice, I need to ask (some ques­tions.) Mr Ba­boolal, what is your name?" Ba­boolal replied: "Os­mond Ba­boolal." "Do you know where you are?" she asked. "Princes Town Mag­is­trates' Court," re­spond­ed Ba­boolal. "Are you ful­ly aware of what is tak­ing place?" asked Ce­de­no. "Quite aware, My La­dy," Ba­boolal said. Valere sug­gest­ed that his client be placed in a con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment to "de­ter­mine what hap­pened, what trig­gered him." "The provo­ca­tion may not be di­rect from the in­di­vid­ual, it could come from be­ing pro­voked by chil­dren in the same uni­form...It couldn't hap­pen out of the blue," he said. The mag­is­trate dis­agreed, say­ing that a re­port from St Ann's Men­tal Hos­pi­tal was need­ed since, on the pros­e­cu­tion's case, "there was no pri­or al­ter­ca­tion or pre­vi­ous provo­ca­tion." Ce­de­no said: "There is need for him to be analysed and a re­port giv­en. Bail is de­nied, re­mand­ed to St Ann's for ob­ser­va­tion, psy­chi­atric analy­sis and re­port. He is to reap­pear in court on Feb­ru­ary 22.