DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice of­fi­cers, tasked with in­ves­ti­gat­ing a group of their col­leagues who shot and killed three friends from Moru­ga in Bar­rack­pore in 2011, chose to recre­ate the scene of the crime be­fore com­plet­ing their probe.

Lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor re­tired As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Ray­mond Craig gave three rea­sons for the move, which is not the stan­dard pro­ce­dure in lo­cal homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tions, as he tes­ti­fied be­fore High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine and a 12-mem­ber ju­ry at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day.

Craig claimed that he and his fel­low mem­bers of the Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) want­ed a clear­er pic­ture of what oc­curred on the night of the shoot­ing and to analyse wit­ness state­ments from two of the trio’s friends, who were dri­ving in front of them be­fore they (the trio) were en­gaged by the of­fi­cers.

“I al­so want­ed to be fair to the ac­cused in this mat­ter,” Craig added.

Dur­ing his lengthy tes­ti­mo­ny, Craig gave de­tails of the var­i­ous steps he took be­fore and af­ter charg­ing Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, An­to­nio Ra­madin, and Glenn Singh with mur­der­ing Alana Dun­can, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Abi­gail John­son in Bar­rack­pore on Ju­ly 22, 2011.

He ex­plained that be­fore recre­at­ing the scene of the shoot­ing, he col­lect­ed state­ments from eye­wit­ness­es and CCTV cam­era footage from a near­by busi­ness.

He al­so col­lect­ed med­ical records from the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where the trio was tak­en af­ter they were shot by the of­fi­cers.

He al­so ob­tained post-mortem re­ports for the trio from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James and sup­plied of­fi­cials of the cen­tre with ex­hibits he and his col­leagues had col­lect­ed for test­ing.

Craig was al­so re­spon­si­ble for lead­ing a group of in­ves­ti­ga­tors, who were tasked with ex­e­cut­ing search war­rants at the homes of of­fi­cers be­fore they were charged.

He al­so gave a de­scrip­tion of a des­o­late dirt track of the M2 Ring Road in Wood­land that he vis­it­ed as part of the probe.

How­ev­er, Craig did not re­veal what ev­i­dence, if any, was gath­ered at that lo­ca­tion or its rel­e­vance to the case.

Craig al­so re­vealed that he at­tempt­ed to in­ter­view Sa­hadeo, Re­viero, and Ju­man be­fore they were even­tu­al­ly charged.

All three of­fi­cers de­clined to par­tic­i­pate based on ad­vice from their lawyers.

Craig end­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny by iden­ti­fy­ing nu­mer­ous ex­hibits that he col­lect­ed from the cen­tre af­ter the of­fi­cers were charged.

The ex­hibits in­clud­ed bul­let frag­ments and shot­gun pel­lets that were re­moved from the three friends’ bod­ies dur­ing their post-mortems.

A gun, am­mu­ni­tion and a pis­tol mag­a­zine that were seized in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion were ten­dered in­to ev­i­dence and shown to the ju­ry.

Craig is ex­pect­ed to be cross ex­am­ined by the of­fi­cers’ de­fence lawyers when the tri­al re­sumes this morn­ing.

Dur­ing his open­ing ad­dress in the case, ear­li­er this year, spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, claimed that hours be­fore the shoot­ing Singh was con­tact­ed by two se­nior of­fi­cers who told him they were build­ing a case against Dun­can’s com­mon-law hus­band Shum­ba James for three mur­ders.

Pe­ter­son claimed that the se­nior of­fi­cers told Singh to look out for the car James was known to have used.

In his tes­ti­mo­ny, James said that on the day of the shoot­ing Dun­can ac­com­pa­nied him as he went to St Mary’s Po­lice Post to re­port as part of his bail con­di­tions for a charge re­lat­ed to a rob­bery in 2005.

He claimed that af­ter com­plet­ing the process, he and Dun­can vis­it­ed sev­er­al bars in the com­mu­ni­ty where they met Ec­cles, John­son, and two oth­er friends.

He said that when the group de­cid­ed to dri­ve to Bar­rack­pore to pur­chase food, he de­cid­ed to go with the two oth­er friends while Dun­can, Ec­cles, and John­son fol­lowed be­hind in his broth­er’s car that he had bor­rowed.

James claimed that up­on reach­ing the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore he saw a group of men, who he sus­pect­ed of be­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, stand­ing at the side of the road.

He claimed that he and his two friends heard a vol­ley of gun­shots short­ly af­ter they drove past the group.

Ear­li­er this week, one of James’ friends, who was with him, Mar­vin Fi­garo tes­ti­fied and gave a sim­i­lar ver­sion of the events as James.

The of­fi­cers are be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Is­rael Khan, SC, Ul­ric Sker­ritt, and Aris­sa Ma­haraj.

Elaine Green, Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller, and Katiesha Am­brose-Per­sads­ingh are ap­pear­ing along­side Pe­ter­son for the State.