Derek Achong

Eleven mem­bers of the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate's Court this af­ter­noon charged with as­sas­i­nat­ing for­mer In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dana See­ta­hal, SC, in May, last year.The man an­med as the gang leader Ra­jaee Ali and 10 mem­bers of the Ja­maat's Cara­po out­post, op­er­at­ed by his fam­i­ly, ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar.

The ac­cused men, who all dressed in Mus­lim garb, oc­cu­pied the en­tire pris­on­er en­clo­sure of the court­room and stood silent­ly as the charge was be­ing read.

In ad­di­tion to the mur­der charge, Ali was al­so slapped with a charge for be­ing a gang leader, while his co-ac­cused were charged with be­ing mem­bers of a gang be­tween March last year and ear­li­er this month.

Ja­maat mem­bers De­on Pe­ters, David Ec­tor and one of Ali's wives Sta­cy Grif­fith were not charged with the mur­der but were slapped with charges for be­ing mem­bers of Ali's gang. Grif­fith was al­so slapped with an ad­di­tion­al charge for fa­cil­i­tat­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty. They were not called up­on to plead to any of the charges.

Dur­ing the hear­ing lawyer for the group, Criston J Williams claimed that sev­er­al news­pa­pers and tele­vi­sion sta­tions had re­port­ed on ev­i­dence in the case which may af­fect his client's abil­i­ty to get a fair tri­al. In re­sponse, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard who as­sured Williams that he would ad­vise the me­dia on prop­er and re­spon­si­ble re­port­ing on the case.

Ja­maat leader Yasin Abu Bakr was al­so present in court and waved to the ac­cused men as they were be­ing led out of the court. Abu Bakr and Has­san Ali were ini­tial­ly de­tained for ques­tion­ing in re­la­tion to See­ta­hal's mur­der last Mon­day, but were re­leased with­out charge af­ter spend­ing close to three days in po­lice cus­tody.The ac­cused will reap­pear in court on Au­gust 24.

The ac­cused are:

1. Ra­jaee Ali, 29, of Ari­ma.

2. De­vaughn Cum­mings, 29, of D'Abadie

3. Ish­mael Ali, 30, of Ari­ma (broth­er of Ra­jaee Ali)

4. Ri­car­do Stew­art, 30, of Ari­ma

5. Earl Richards, 48, of Co­corite

6. Stephan Cum­mings, 33, of Ari­ma

7. Gareth Wise­man, 33, of Ch­agua­nas

8. Hamid Ali, 34, of Melo­di­ans Cres­cent, Mal­abar, Ari­ma, (broth­er of Ra­jaee Ali)

9. Kevin Parkin­son, 28, of Wa­ter Hole, Co­corite

10. Le­ston Gon­za­les, 28, of Ari­ma

11. Ro­get Bouch­er, 29, of Ari­ma

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, short­ly be­fore mid­night on May 3 last year, See­ta­hal left the Ma Pau casi­no car park on French Street, Port-of-Spain, be­fore dri­ving on­to Wright­son Road and lat­er turn­ing north on­to Hamil­ton Hold­er Street, Wood­brook.

Po­lice said as she ap­proached the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty around 12.05 am, she was blocked by two ve­hi­cles, whose oc­cu­pants came out and shot her.

See­ta­hal was shot five times, twice in the right side of her head, twice in the right fore­arm and once in the chest. Her killers were so close to her that gun­pow­der residue was found on her cloth­ing.

Omar See­ta­hal, broth­er of the slain Se­nior Coun­cil, said all his sis­ter ever want­ed was jus­tice for all.

"We are hon­est­ly hop­ing for jus­tice � true jus­tice. I want a true, fair and im­par­tial crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Dana was a per­son who want­ed jus­tice not mere­ly con­vic­tions, she want­ed true jus­tice. I felt her pres­ence in the court­room to­day, she has al­ways been an of­fi­cer of the law," See­ta­hal said

He said his fam­i­ly are hap­py that there is progress in the case.

"I am hap­py to see that a step has been tak­en. The first step, we know that it is a jour­ney but we are look­ing for­ward to a suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion. We are look­ing for­ward for jus­tice for Dana. We re­al­ly hope our law en­force­ment agen­cies con­tin­ue to do their part in mak­ing sure that true jus­tice is served," See­ta­hal said.