Derek Achong

The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions has suc­ceed­ed in its ap­peal of the pre­ma­ture dis­missal of a mur­der charge against a man, who was sub­se­quent­ly mur­dered.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment yes­ter­day morn­ing, Ap­pel­late Judges Prakash Moo­sai, Mark Mo­hammed, and Mal­colm Holdip up­held the ap­peal from the DPP’s Of­fice in the case of Ker­lan “Mice Man” George.

In pur­su­ing the ap­peal, the DPP’s Of­fice ac­cept­ed that the out­come would not have an im­pact on its in­abil­i­ty to now pros­e­cute George, who was mur­dered in 2017. How­ev­er, it called up­on the Ap­peal Court to weigh in on an over three-decade-old le­gal prece­dent on a judge’s dis­cre­tion to dis­miss a case be­fore a ju­ry in cir­cum­stances where the ev­i­dence against an ac­cused per­son is found to be man­i­fest­ly un­re­li­able.

George was charged with mur­der­ing for­mer Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) fore­man An­drew “Bel­lies” John in De­cem­ber 2006.

In Feb­ru­ary 2011, George was freed by for­mer High Court Judge An­dre Mon De­sir who up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion at the end of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case be­cause of the ev­i­dence of John’s wife, Nir­mala Solomon.

Solomon, who was al­leged­ly present at Wharf Trace, Mara­cas/St Joseph, when her hus­band was shot nine times, was deemed a hos­tile wit­ness as her ev­i­dence at tri­al dif­fered from pre­vi­ous state­ments giv­en to the po­lice.

Jus­tice Mon De­sir ruled that her ev­i­dence was man­i­fest­ly un­re­li­able and no rea­son­able tri­bunal could prop­er­ly con­vict George based on it.

In up­hold­ing the ap­peal, Jus­tice Mo­hammed, who de­liv­ered the pan­el’s judg­ment, said the case of San­git Chait­lal, which was used by Jus­tice Mon De­sir in de­cid­ing the case, was wrong­ly de­cid­ed.

He agreed with for­mer Deputy DPP George Bus­by, who has since been ap­point­ed a High Court Judge, and at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh, who rep­re­sent­ed George in the case am­i­cus cu­ri­ae (as a friend of the court), that the com­pre­hen­sive process enun­ci­at­ed in the case of Gal­braith should have been ap­plied.

The ap­peal pan­el de­clined to give guid­ance to High Court Mas­ters, who per­form suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ings be­fore tri­als, as it did not re­ceive full le­gal ar­gu­ments on the is­sue.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that his col­league was wrong to not al­low pros­e­cu­tors to ten­der ev­i­dence that sug­gest­ed that Solomon’s hos­til­i­ty at tri­al was due to her be­ing fear­ful for her life. He al­so ruled that the judge should have al­lowed the ju­ry to con­sid­er Solomon’s pre­vi­ous state­ments and her in­con­sis­tent tes­ti­mo­ny at tri­al to de­ter­mine her cred­i­bil­i­ty.

George was mur­dered al­most six years af­ter he was freed of the charge and while the ap­peal was still pend­ing. On Jan­u­ary 19, 2017, he and his friend Shameel “Kaz­im” Ali were on their way to the St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion when they were am­bushed by gun­men who shot them sev­er­al times.

George was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Vere Marie Khan, and Lana Lakhan.