Derek Achong

Al­leged gang leader and mur­der ac­cused Ra­jaee Ali has made head­way in his bid to bring a law­suit over be­ing placed in soli­tary con­fine­ment at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Den­nis Pul­chan were yes­ter­day forced to con­cede a pre­lim­i­nary law­suit over his (Pul­chan) al­leged re­fusal to fa­cil­i­tate Ali swear­ing an af­fi­davit, which is re­quired for his sub­stan­tive claim over the con­di­tions of his in­car­cer­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Ali’s court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, his lawyer Roshan To­ta-Ma­haraj first start­ed send­ing re­quests to Pul­chan to fa­cil­i­tate the prepa­ra­tion of the doc­u­ment, last week.

Af­ter Pul­chan al­leged­ly failed to re­spond on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and To­ta-Ma­haraj and a Com­mis­sion­er of Af­fi­davits were re­fused ac­cess, late last week, a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter was sent to Pul­chan on Mon­day.

The case was filed and came up for vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Dur­ing the brief hear­ing, Pul­chan’s lawyers in­di­cat­ed that he had reached out to To­ta-Ma­haraj and had agreed to fa­cil­i­tate the re­quest once it is re­ceived 24 hours be­fore the in­tend­ed vis­it.

The pre­lim­i­nary case is ex­pect­ed to come up for hear­ing be­fore Ram­per­sad next week to dis­cuss pos­si­ble dam­ages and le­gal costs. The sub­stan­tive law­suit is ex­pect­ed to be filed once the af­fi­davit is com­plet­ed and sworn.

On Ju­ly 25, 2015, Ali, his broth­ers Ish­mael and Hamid Ali; De­vaughn Cum­mings, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Earl Richards, Stephan Cum­mings, Kevin Parkin­son, Le­ston Gon­za­les; Ro­get Bouch­er and Gareth Wise­man were charged with mur­der­ing Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal.

See­ta­hal was shot dead be­hind the wheel of her SUV while dri­ving along Hamil­ton Hold­er Street in Wood­brook on May 4, 2014.

Ali’s wife Sta­cy Grif­fith, De­on Pe­ters and David Ec­tor were charged un­der the An­ti-Gang Act for be­ing mem­bers of a gang, while Grif­fith was ad­di­tion­al­ly charged with as­sist­ing the gang.

The gang charges were ini­tial­ly dis­missed based on the fact that they were laid in­dictably (heard and de­ter­mined by a High Court Judge and ju­ry), as op­posed to sum­mar­i­ly (heard and de­ter­mined by a mag­is­trate), as re­quired for first-time of­fend­ers un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

The is­sue re­sult­ed in Pe­ters and Ec­tor be­ing freed. Grif­fith re­mained be­fore the court as she was slapped with the ad­di­tion­al charge that was prop­er­ly laid. Grif­fith’s charge for as­sist­ing the gang has since been dis­con­tin­ued by the DPP’s Of­fice.

The Court of Ap­peal even­tu­al­ly re­versed Ce­de­no’s de­ci­sion and ef­fec­tive­ly re­in­stat­ed the charges for be­ing mem­bers of a gang.

As Ec­tor was mur­dered in Ju­ly 2018, on­ly Pe­ters was re­ar­rest­ed and recharged with the of­fence.

The re­in­stat­ed charges are now be­fore an­oth­er mag­is­trate.

Stephan Cum­mings was ini­tial­ly charged for the mur­der but in De­cem­ber 2017, he was made a State wit­ness af­ter he agreed to tes­ti­fy against his for­mer friends. The charge was dis­con­tin­ued against him and he was in­stead charged with con­spir­ing to mur­der See­ta­hal.

In Ju­ly, the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to See­ta­hal’s mur­der was com­plet­ed and the group was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al.

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.