Alleged gang leader Rajaee Ali will have to face a new trial for possession of the carcass of a protected animal outside of the hunting season.
In a judgment yesterday, Appellate Judges Alice Yorke-Soo Hon and Malcolm Holdip upheld the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) appeal of a magistrate’s decision to uphold a no-case submission and dismiss the charge in 2019.
Ali was arrested along with two men near their homes in Carapo, Arima, in August 2014, after police found the headless carcass in a trunk.
One of the men previously pleaded guilty to the offence and was fined, while the other benefited from the magistrate’s ruling about Ali.
The maximum penalty for the offence is a $1,000 fine or three months imprisonment.
They were arrested during the two-year moratorium on hunting instituted by former Minister of the Environment and Water Resources Ganga Singh to help the country’s depleted wildlife stocks recover.
Game warden Glenford Doyle, an expert witness in the case, identified the animal as a lappe or lowland paca as opposed to a capybara or agouti based on its toes. A lappe has four toes in its front feet and five in its back feet.
Despite Doyle’s evidence Magistrate Debby Ann Basaaw dismissed the case on the basis that the prosecution had not established that the carcass was that of a lappe.
The appeal panel found no issue with Doyle being deemed an expert witness despite not identifying his qualifications.
“It is clear that he acquired adequate knowledge and the skill of rodent identification and could distinguish between the capybara, the agouti and the lappe,” Justice Yorke-Soo Hon said.
She said the magistrate erred in rejecting Doyle’s evidence.
“Mr Doyle’s evidence remained uncontradicted and unchallenged and there was simply no rational or proper basis for rejecting it,” she said.
She also pointed out that Ali and his co-accused allegedly admitted that the animal was a lappe when they were detained by the police.
In allowing the appeal, the panel ordered a new trial before another magistrate.
The outcome of the appeal is arguably inconsequential for Ali who is awaiting trial with nine members of his alleged gang for murdering Independent Senator Dana Seetahal, SC, on May 4, 2014.
Ali and four others have also been committed to stand trial for conspiring to murder Slam 100.5 announcer Kevaughn “Lurbz” Savory on November 27, 2014.
Ali was represented by Mark Seepersad and Roshan Tota-Maharaj, while Deputy DPP Sabrina Dougdeen-Jaglal represented the State.