SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Al­most 18 years af­ter he was ac­cused of rob­bery, a 43-year-old man has been found not guilty.

De­rias Gus­tav, of La Ro­main, was ac­quit­ted on Mon­day by High Court Judge Kathy-Ann Wa­ter­man fol­low­ing a judge-alone tri­al which be­gan last De­cem­ber.

Gus­tav, a chef, was charged with rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion, aris­ing out of an in­ci­dent on March 13, 2006.

The po­lice al­leged that a cell­phone, which was stolen dur­ing the rob­bery, was found in his pos­ses­sion.
The State’s case was that Gus­tav held up two sales­men with a gun while they were de­liv­er­ing goods and robbed them of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $12,000 and a Mo­torol­la cell­phone.

How­ev­er, by the time the mat­ter came up for hear­ing, two state wit­ness­es, the jus­tice of the peace and the po­lice in­spec­tor who con­duct­ed the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade were all de­ceased.
Their state­ments were ad­mit­ted in­to ev­i­dence, as they tes­ti­fied at the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the Mag­is­trates’ Court.

State at­tor­neys Tat­erani Seecha­ran and As­trea Stoute, who con­duct­ed the pros­e­cu­tion’s case, called six wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing the com­plainant WPC Mey­ers and ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer Dale Ram­roop.
The vic­tims al­so tes­ti­fied.

Gus­tav gave ev­i­dence and called four wit­ness­es on his be­half, in­clud­ing two of the men who formed the line-up at his iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade.

His at­tor­neys, Ja­son Jack­son, in­struct­ed by Krysan Ram­bert, closed their case on De­cem­ber 11, 2023.