Sus­pend­ed Po­lice Con­sta­ble Dar­win Ghouralal, who is await­ing tri­al for the mur­der of eight-year-old Daniel Guer­ra, at­tempt­ed to take his life yes­ter­day. He is now un­der strict watch at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre.

Per­son­nel said he at­tempt­ed the act around 1 pm. Ghouralal, last as­signed to the San Fer­nan­do Rob­bery Squad, sur­ren­dered to San Fer­nan­do Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment last Sat­ur­day af­ter nine years in hid­ing.

A re­port said he walked in­to the re­cep­tion area and told WPC Ny­sus and PC Lange that he heard there was a war­rant for his ar­rest. Act­ing Cor­po­ral Mad­hoo, the war­rant of­fi­cer, ex­e­cut­ed the bench war­rant on Ghouralal and of­fi­cers took him to prison for safe­keep­ing pend­ing his court ap­pear­ance.

Ghouralal, of La Ro­maine, was a close friend of Daniel’s moth­er, Rona In­dars­ingh, when the child went miss­ing. Re­ports stat­ed that the Stan­dard Two Gas­par­il­lo Pri­ma­ry School pupil left home to pur­chase soft drinks at a par­lour near his Be­deau Street, Gas­par­il­lo home on Feb­ru­ary 18, 2011. A passer­by found his body two days lat­er in a near­by riv­er. One au­top­sy found he died from drown­ing, while two oth­ers said it was homi­ci­dal as­phyx­ia.

Homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed and charged Ghouralal a month lat­er. On Sep­tem­ber 17, 2013, Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan grant­ed a no-case sub­mis­sion filed by Ghouralal’s at­tor­neys, Sophia Chote SC and Michelle Solomon.

Ram­bachan dis­charged the case but the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions ap­plied to the High Court to con­tin­ue the pros­e­cu­tion. A judge then is­sued a war­rant for po­lice to bring Ghouralal be­fore the High Court on a mur­der charge.