RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Two days af­ter Gabriel­la Dubar­ry was cre­mat­ed, the man ac­cused of her mur­der has been sent for a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion at the St Anns Psy­chi­atric Hos­pi­tal.

Vishal Bir­ju, 30, a PH dri­ver of Pep­per Vil­lage, Fyz­abad ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Ava Van­den­berg-Bai­ley at the Siparia Mag­is­trates Court on Tues­day morn­ing.

The court heard that on Thurs­day 9th Jan­u­ary, Bir­ju went in­to the home of Dubar­ry’s par­ents at Je­bodhs­ingh Dri­ve, Av­o­cat and shot her on the head. 

He was not called up­on to plead as the charge was laid in­dictably.

Wear­ing a blue shirt, jeans and white sneak­ers, Bir­ju con­tin­u­al­ly rocked from front to back as he stared at the Mag­is­trate and wait­ed for his mat­ter to be heard.

This prompt­ed Court Pros­e­cu­tor Starr Ja­cob to ask why he was shak­ing.

His at­tor­ney Naz­i­ma Ali said he was in need of a psy­cho­log­i­cal as­sess­ment. She said he re­quired med­ica­tion and a prop­er med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion.

Pros­e­cu­tor Ja­cob con­sult­ed with the com­plainant Cpl Har­riper­sad. She lat­er told Mag­is­trate Van­den­berg- Bai­ley that Bir­ju showed no signs of “med­ical in­ca­pa­bil­i­ties” dur­ing his in­car­cer­a­tion.

“He was quite co­her­ent dur­ing the in­quiries, “ she added.

How­ev­er, she said the pros­e­cu­tion had no prob­lems with Bir­ju un­der­go­ing a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion. Mag­is­trate Van­den­berg- Bai­ley or­dered that Bir­ju be tak­en for an as­sess­ment at the St Ann’s hos­pi­tal for a two-week pe­ri­od.

He was or­dered to reap­pear in court on Jan­u­ary 28.

Dubar­ry had been in­volved in a re­la­tion­ship with Bir­ju since school days. Days be­fore her mur­der she lodged a re­port at the Fyz­abad po­lice sta­tion.

She was the moth­er of a sev­en-year-old boy. Po­lice said be­fore she died she made do­mes­tic vi­o­lence re­ports to the Fyz­abad po­lice.