Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Homi­cide de­tec­tives were yes­ter­day seek­ing to com­plete their probe in­to an at­tor­ney held for al­leged­ly har­bour­ing the man sus­pect­ed of the bru­tal mur­der of 22-year-old Can­dace Hon­ore. 

The progress in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was re­vealed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) yes­ter­day in a re­sponse to a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent by the lawyer’s at­tor­ney Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh. 

On Mon­day, Ma­hara­jh wrote to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro threat­en­ing to file a habeas cor­pus writ chal­leng­ing his client’s con­tin­ued de­ten­tion. 

In the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ma­hara­jh claimed that his client was not in­formed of the rea­son for his de­ten­tion af­ter he was ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day. 

He al­so ques­tioned why his client had not been in­ter­viewed by in­ves­ti­ga­tors. 

Quot­ing a le­gal prece­dent over the abil­i­ty of the po­lice to de­tain cit­i­zens when there is in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to charge or re­lease them, Ma­hara­jh said: “It is trite law that the po­lice do not have the le­gal au­thor­i­ty to de­tain some­one on en­quiries.”

In a re­sponse, yes­ter­day morn­ing, the TTPS’s Le­gal Ser­vices Unit sug­gest­ed that the pro­posed le­gal ac­tion was pre­ma­ture. 

Not­ing his client was cur­rent­ly be­ing in­ter­viewed, it said, “Up­on com­ple­tion of same, the in­ves­tiga­tive team is ex­pect­ed to have an au­di­ence with the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) for ad­vice on your client’s de­ten­tion.” 

Hon­ore, an as­pir­ing nurse, was re­port­ed miss­ing on Ju­ly 11 af­ter rel­a­tives had not been in con­tact with her for sev­er­al days. 

Last Thurs­day, the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team led by Val­lence Ramb­harat found a suit­case in a pond in a com­mu­ni­ty near the Va­len­cia High School. 

 The suit­case was re­trieved and found to con­tain plas­tic bags con­tain­ing body parts. 

While homi­cide de­tec­tives be­lieve that the body was Hon­ore’s, DNA test­ing is still ex­pect­ed to be per­formed. 

The 28-year-old sus­pect and his lawyer were ar­rest­ed at the lawyer’s San­gre Grande of­fice on Sat­ur­day. 

Po­lice be­lieve that the sus­pect had been at the lo­ca­tion since the gris­ly dis­cov­ery was made. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that in­ves­ti­ga­tors have al­so ques­tioned an­oth­er man, who may have un­know­ing­ly as­sist­ed the sus­pect in dis­pos­ing of the body. 

The man claimed that he was asked to use his wheel­bar­row to trans­port the suit­case from the sus­pect’s home. 

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