JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

Port-of-Spain man gets retrial for murdeing fellow resident

by

Derek Achong
520 days ago
20230915

The Court of Ap­peal has or­dered a re­tri­al for a man from east Port-of-Spain, ac­cused of mur­der­ing a fel­low res­i­dent in 2008.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment on Wednes­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon, Gre­go­ry Smith, and Mal­colm Holdip up­held Hakim “Gargamel” Brath­waite’s ap­peal over his con­vic­tion.

Brath­waite was charged with mur­der­ing Kevin Miguel Williams on May 19, 2008.

The State’s on­ly wit­ness against Brath­waite was In­spec­tor Kester Bil­ly, who claimed to have wit­nessed the crime.

Dur­ing his tri­al in 2016, Bil­ly claimed that he was walk­ing along South Quay in Port-of-Spain on his way to work when he heard a vol­ley of gun­shots em­a­nat­ing from a near­by hous­ing com­plex.

He tes­ti­fied that when he went to in­ves­ti­gate he saw Brath­waite, whom he claimed to know for 10 years pri­or, stand­ing over Williams and shoot­ing him (Williams) in his head.

Brath­waite ran away and Bil­ly did not pur­sue him as he (Bil­ly) sought to con­tact col­leagues and se­cure the crime scene.

Williams suc­cumbed to four gun­shot wounds at the scene.

Brath­waite was ar­rest­ed short­ly af­ter the in­ci­dent and was charged af­ter Bil­ly iden­ti­fied him dur­ing a ver­i­fi­ca­tion ex­er­cise.

Brath­waite tes­ti­fied in his de­fence and de­nied any wrong­do­ing.

He claimed that at the time of the shoot­ing, he was at his East Dry Riv­er home with his com­mon-law wife and their two chil­dren.

He al­so claimed that Bil­ly could not have known him for the length of time he (Bil­ly) claimed.

Brath­waite said that he first met Bil­ly in 2005 when he (Bil­ly) charged him with re­sist­ing ar­rest and us­ing ob­scene lan­guage over an in­ci­dent in which he re­fused Bil­ly’s in­struc­tions to ex­tin­guish a fire that he did not start.

He claimed that af­ter that in­ci­dent, he tried to avoid Bil­ly, whom he ac­cused of re­peat­ed­ly threat­en­ing to have him in­car­cer­at­ed.

De­spite his claims of fab­ri­ca­tion and mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, Brath­waite was con­vict­ed of the crime and giv­en the manda­to­ry death penal­ty.

In his ap­peal, his lawyers Pe­ter Carter and Aleena Ram­jag claimed that the judge, who presided over his tri­al, failed to prop­er­ly cau­tion the 12-mem­ber ju­ry that found him guilty, for them to con­sid­er whether Bil­ly had an in­ter­est to serve by im­pli­cat­ing him.

The ap­peal pan­el agreed.

In re­ject­ing the sub­mis­sions and or­der­ing the re­tri­al, Jus­tice Yorke-Soo Hon said: “Any de­lib­er­ate killing of an­oth­er hu­man be­ing can­not be de­scribed by any oth­er means oth­er than heinous.”

As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal rep­re­sent­ed the State.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored