Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The ju­ry in the tri­al of six po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of mur­der­ing three friends from Moru­ga in 2011, yes­ter­day heard the steps al­leged­ly tak­en by the of­fi­cers to cov­er up their ac­tions. 

The de­tails were pro­vid­ed by their for­mer col­league, WPC Nicole Clement, who was ini­tial­ly joint­ly charged with them for the triple mur­der but be­came a state wit­ness. 

On Mon­day, Clement was deemed a hos­tile wit­ness by High Court Judge Car­la Brown-An­toine af­ter she de­clined to tes­ti­fy due to “safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns”. Her tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, in which she claimed 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. 

Jus­tice Brown-An­tonie’s staff con­tin­ued read­ing the lengthy de­po­si­tion to the 12-mem­ber ju­ry when the tri­al re­sumed yes­ter­day. 

Clement claimed that af­ter one of the friends died at the scene of the first shoot­ing at the cor­ner of Rochard Dou­glas Road and Gun­ness Trace in Bar­rack­pore, she and two of her col­leagues placed the body in the trunk of their po­lice ve­hi­cle. 

She said the two sur­viv­ing vic­tims, a man and a woman, were placed in the ve­hi­cle and tak­en to a grav­el road off the M2 Ring Road in Wood­land where they were shot by one of her col­leagues and were then placed in the trunk with their de­ceased friend. 

She claimed her col­league drove slow­ly to the Princes Town Health Fa­cil­i­ty and on­ly put on the ve­hi­cle’s siren when they were near. She al­leged that while en route, her col­league stopped the ve­hi­cle to check a tyre as he thought that he shot it by mis­take. 

Clement said she was told by one of her col­leagues that the male vic­tim on­ly suc­cumbed to his in­juries as they ap­proached the hos­pi­tal. 

“He said like that man didn’t want to dead. He took his last breath on the road here,” she said. 

She said she and her col­leagues had to call for back­up while at the fa­cil­i­ty as the trio’s irate rel­a­tives had gath­ered there and were protest­ing. She said she be­came emo­tion­al when she saw the male vic­tim’s four-year-old son. 

“I felt that I was go­ing crazy and I need­ed to leave,” Clement said. 

Af­ter the shoot­ing, Clement said she and her col­leagues were placed on leave for sev­en days and dur­ing the pe­ri­od they held sev­er­al clan­des­tine meet­ings dur­ing which they tried to en­sure that their re­ports on the shoot­ing were con­sis­tent. The meet­ings were held at sev­er­al lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing San Fer­nan­do Hill and the first crime scene in Bar­rack­pore. 

“That is the nor­mal po­lice cul­ture when things like this hap­pen … Every­one sticks to­geth­er and writes the same re­port … One squad. One song,” she said. 

Clement said one of her col­leagues pro­vid­ed the oth­ers with in­for­ma­tion on the progress of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion which had been leaked to him. 

“He said that they (in­ves­ti­ga­tors) would tar­get me as I was the weak link,” she said. 

She al­so al­leged that she was in­vit­ed to join her col­leagues on an im­promp­tu recre­ation­al trip to To­ba­go dur­ing their pe­ri­od on leave. 

“I told them that fam­i­lies had just lost the lives of their rel­a­tives and I don’t think that was right at that time,” she said. 

Clement said two of her col­leagues wrote her re­port and she just signed al­though she knew it was er­ro­neous. 

“That is the way we were trained,” she said. 

Dur­ing cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan at the in­quiry, Clement said she de­cid­ed to con­fess what tran­spired when she was ap­proached by in­ves­ti­ga­tors af­ter be­ing charged along­side her col­leagues. 

Sgt Khem­raj Sa­hadeo and PCs Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man, and An­to­nio Ra­madin are ac­cused of mur­der­ing Abi­gail John­son, Ker­ron Ec­cles, and Alana Dun­can on Ju­ly 22, 2011. 

In his open­ing ad­dress in the case, lead pros­e­cu­tor Gilbert Pe­ter­son, SC, claimed the of­fi­cers were tar­get­ing Dun­can’s com­mon-law hus­band, Shum­ba James, who tes­ti­fied ear­li­er in the tri­al. James nar­row­ly es­caped be­cause he went in a friend’s ve­hi­cle while the trio fol­lowed in the Nis­san B15 that he was known to have used.  

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

The tri­al is sched­uled to re­sume this morn­ing.