Six po­lice of­fi­cers on tri­al for mur­der­ing three friends from Moru­ga in 2011 have de­clined to tes­ti­fy in their own de­fence.

Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, An­to­nio Ra­madin were called up­on by High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine to in­di­cate af­ter the State closed its case against them, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Asked in­di­vid­u­al­ly, each of the of­fi­cers stat­ed that they had re­ceived ad­vice from their at­tor­neys to re­main silent in the case.

How­ev­er, on­ly Ra­madin in­di­cat­ed that he would be call­ing de­fence wit­ness­es.

Af­ter the process was com­plet­ed, Cpl Ster­ling Lee was called in­to the wit­ness box to tes­ti­fy.

Lee, who is as­signed to St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion, claimed that ear­li­er this year, WPC Nicole Clement, who was ini­tial­ly charged along­side the of­fi­cers be­fore be­ing made a State wit­ness, sub­mit­ted two state­ments that he de­liv­ered to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

In one state­ment, which was re­ferred to by the of­fi­cers’ lawyer Is­rael Khan, SC, as he sought to ques­tion Clement, ear­li­er this week, Clement es­sen­tial­ly re­cant­ed her pre­vi­ous claims which im­pli­cat­ed her for­mer col­leagues for the triple mur­der.

She claimed to be the “mas­ter­mind” as she con­tend­ed that she threat­ened her col­leagues in­to ex­e­cut­ing two of the friends, who al­leged­ly sur­vived the ini­tial shoot­ing on the car they were dri­ving in.

In the oth­er state­ment, Clement in­di­cat­ed that she was no longer will­ing to tes­ti­fy against her for­mer col­leagues as ini­tial­ly agreed un­der her plea agree­ment with the DPP’s Of­fice.

Clement com­plet­ed her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the tri­al on Thurs­day.

On Mon­day, she was deemed a hos­tile wit­ness af­ter she re­fused to tes­ti­fy due to al­leged “safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns”.

Clement’s tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry of the case, in which she claimed that two of the friends sur­vived the ini­tial bar­rage of gun­shots on their ve­hi­cle but were ex­e­cut­ed at a sec­ond lo­ca­tion, was read to the ju­ry.

She was then ques­tioned about her pre­vi­ous tes­ti­mo­ny by lead pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, and the group’s de­fence at­tor­neys Is­rael Khan, SC, and Ul­ric Sker­ritt.

The process was more of a mono­logue than an in­ter­ro­ga­tion as Clement sat silent­ly with her hands crossed in front of her for sev­er­al hours each day as she de­clined to an­swer any of their ques­tions.

In her pre­vi­ous tes­ti­mo­ny, Clement claimed that hours, be­fore Abi­gail John­son, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Alana Dun­can were shot and killed on Ju­ly 22, 2011, one of her col­leagues, re­ceived in­struc­tions to de­tain Dun­can’s com­mon-law hus­band Shum­ba James, who was want­ed for sev­er­al mur­ders.

She ad­mit­ted that she and her col­leagues opened fire on the car James was known to have used as it drove past the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore.

James, who tes­ti­fied ear­li­er in the tri­al, nar­row­ly es­caped as he opt­ed to trav­el with two friends in a sep­a­rate car while the trio fol­lowed be­hind in his.

Clement claimed that Ec­cles and one of the women sur­vived the ini­tial vol­ley of gun­shots.

She claimed that her col­leagues took the duo to a dirt track off the M2 Ring Road in Wood­land where they were ex­e­cut­ed.

She ad­mit­ted that af­ter the shoot­ing, she and her col­leagues were placed on sev­en days’ leave.

She claimed that dur­ing the pe­ri­od, she and her col­leagues had sev­er­al clan­des­tine meet­ings dur­ing which they sought to en­sure that their in­di­vid­ual re­ports on the shoot­ing were con­sis­tent.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, yes­ter­day, pros­e­cu­tors ten­dered the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry tes­ti­mo­ny of An­drel Richards, who was in the car with James.

The ju­ry was not in­formed of the rea­son why Richards did not at­tend court to tes­ti­fy.

Pros­e­cu­tors al­so ten­dered the ev­i­dence of a sci­en­tif­ic of­fi­cer from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, who was tasked with test­ing a glove that was re­cov­ered by in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

The of­fi­cer claimed that sam­ples tak­en from the glove were in­suf­fi­cient for DNA test­ing.

The of­fi­cers are al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Aris­sa Ma­haraj. The State is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Elaine Greene, Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller and Katiesha Am­brose-Per­sads­ingh.

The tri­al is set to re­sume on Tues­day. —DEREK ACHONG