KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Nine years af­ter he went in­to hid­ing, for­mer po­lice con­sta­ble Dar­win Ghouralal sur­ren­dered to of­fi­cers at the San Fer­nan­do CID yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.
Ghouralal was one of the most want­ed men in the coun­try for sev­er­al years for al­leged­ly mur­der­ing eight-year-old Daniel Guer­ra in Feb­ru­ary 2011. Ghouralal, who shared a close re­la­tion­ship with Daniel's moth­er, was charged with mur­der a month lat­er. 

Po­lice said that around 1 pm, WPC Ny­sus and PC Lange was on du­ty when they saw Ghouralal walked en­ter the charge room. He ap­proached the re­cep­tion area and told the of­fi­cers that he re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that there was a war­rant for his ar­rest. Act­ing Cpl Mad­hoo, the war­rant of­fi­cers, ex­e­cut­ed the bench war­rant on Ghouralal.
Of­fi­cers took Ghouralal in­to cus­tody and trans­ferred him to a prison as per his war­rant. Po­lice ex­plained that with the judge's war­rant, there will not be a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion, and the mat­ter would go di­rect­ly to the High Court for tri­al.
There was spec­u­la­tion that he had fled the coun­try, but po­lice said there were al­so re­ports that he was still in Trinidad and was be­ing aid­ed by rel­a­tives. Po­lice could not say why he de­cid­ed to sur­ren­der af­ter all these years.
On Feb­ru­ary 18, 2011, Daniel, a Stan­dard Two pupil of the Gas­par­il­lo Pri­ma­ry School, left his Be­deau Street home in Gas­par­il­lo to buy soft drinks at a near­by par­lour. The last place any­one saw him alive was on a grassy track lead­ing home. How­ev­er, rel­a­tives said he nev­er made it there. Two days lat­er, a passer­by found his de­com­pos­ing body in a riv­er run­ning along the Tarou­ba Link Road, San Fer­nan­do.
An au­top­sy per­formed at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre by Dr Es­lyn Mc­Don­ald-Bur­ris and su­per­vised by Dr Va­lerie Alexan­drov con­clud­ed that the cause of death was drown­ing. Un­sat­is­fied with the find­ings, the fam­i­ly got an­oth­er au­top­sy. Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary re­port­ed that Guer­ra died from as­phyx­ia be­fore his body en­tered the riv­er, sug­gest­ing stran­gu­la­tion. US pathol­o­gist Dr James Gill, hired by for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, per­formed an­oth­er au­top­sy at the mor­tu­ary and stat­ed that Daniel died from homi­ci­dal as­phyx­ia. 
On April 11, 2011, in­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed and charged Ghouralal with Daniel's mur­der. 
In a case that last­ed two and a half years at the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trate's Court, Ghouralal walked free af­ter Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion filed by his at­tor­neys Sophia Chote S.C and Michelle Solomon.
A 55-para­graph sub­mis­sion di­rect­ed Ram­bachan to sev­er­al el­e­ments of the State's ev­i­dence the de­fence ar­gued was cir­cum­stan­tial. It con­tend­ed that the ev­i­dence asked a pre­sid­ing mag­is­trate to draw in­fer­ences to de­ter­mine whether it made a pri­ma fa­cie case against Ghouralal. Ram­bachan dis­missed the charges, de­ter­min­ing that the State, led by Deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Joan Hon­ore-Paul, failed to make a pri­ma fa­cie case against Ghouralal on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2013.
Hon­ore-Paul told the court that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions would ap­ply for a judge's war­rant, which al­lows the State to re­view the case doc­u­ments be­fore tak­ing fur­ther ac­tion. Af­ter fol­low­ing through, it went to the High Court for per­mis­sion to con­tin­ue the pros­e­cu­tion. A judge re­viewed court de­po­si­tions and is­sued a war­rant to re-ar­rest Ghouralal.