Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The tri­al of six po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of mur­der­ing three friends from Moru­ga al­most 12 years ago will recom­mence in Sep­tem­ber.

High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine ad­journed the tri­al to Sep­tem­ber 19 af­ter a hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, on Thurs­day.

The lengthy ad­journ­ment was due to the fact that the Ju­di­cia­ry be­gins its an­nu­al va­ca­tion pe­ri­od on Ju­ly 31.

The tri­al was ini­tial­ly sched­uled to re­sume on Sep­tem­ber 11, but Jus­tice Brown-An­toine had to ad­just the plan as the fore­man of the 12-mem­ber ju­ry in the case had to un­der­go a week-long work-re­lat­ed as­sess­ment dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, State pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed the un­con­test­ed ev­i­dence of a T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) fin­ger­print ex­pert, who per­formed work on the ve­hi­cle in which the trio was shot and killed on Ju­ly 22, 2011.

In her wit­ness state­ment, which was ten­dered in­to ev­i­dence and read to the ju­ry, PC Tu­la Julien said she in­spect­ed the ve­hi­cle at the Bar­rack­pore Po­lice Sta­tion, a day af­ter the shoot­ing.

She claimed that she no­ticed nu­mer­ous holes in the car’s front and back bumpers, doors, and wind­screens.

She al­so not­ed that she found sev­er­al “brass ob­jects” while in­spect­ing the in­side of the ve­hi­cle. She claimed that she col­lect­ed the items and placed them in plas­tic vials so that they could be lat­er analysed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James.

Julien al­so claimed that she found an emp­ty beer bot­tle in the car. She claimed that she dust­ed it for fin­ger­prints but found no work­able prints that she could analyse.

Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, An­to­nio Ra­madin, and Glenn Singh are charged with mur­der­ing Alana Dun­can, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Abi­gail John­son.

Dur­ing his open­ing ad­dress in the case, last week, 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 boyfriend Shum­ba James for three mur­ders.

On Wednes­day, ASP An­der­son Pa­ri­man and re­tired Su­per­in­ten­dent Zamsheed Mo­hammed ad­mit­ted that they told Singh that James was “armed and dan­ger­ous” and was known to use a ve­hi­cle that matched the de­scrip­tion of the one the trio was even­tu­al­ly killed in.

Pe­ter­son stat­ed that James would tes­ti­fy that he bor­rowed a white Nis­san B15 from his broth­er and took Dun­can to the St Mary’s Po­lice Post where he had to re­port three times week­ly as part of his bail con­di­tions in re­la­tion to a pend­ing case he had be­fore the court.

Pe­ter­son stat­ed that af­ter com­plet­ing the process, James and Dun­can vis­it­ed sev­er­al near­by bars where they met with Dun­can and Ec­cles.

He claimed that when they were leav­ing one of the bars to pur­chase BBQ in Bar­rack­pore, James left in a car with two child­hood friends, while John­son, Dun­can, and Ec­cles fol­lowed in his broth­er’s car.

The shoot­ing oc­curred as John­son, Dun­can, and Ec­cles were dri­ving past the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore.

James and his friends wit­nessed the shoot­ing as they drove ahead of John­son, Dun­can, and Ec­cles.

In their de­fence, the of­fi­cers are con­tend­ing that they act­ed in self-de­fence as they claimed the three friends shot at them and they re­turned fire.

The of­fi­cers are 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.