Leave insane wife-killer indoors

STATE attorney Joy Balkaran pleaded with Justice Humphrey Stollmeyer yesterday not to let insane wife-killer George Noreiga back onto the streets. Balkaran said that having regard to cases cited, she felt it was not safe to simply release Noreiga back into society. “By sections 67 and 68 of the Criminal Procedure Act, he was ordered to be detained in safe custody, whether a mental health institution or a prison, and to be treated in any manner as the President thinks necessary,” the State attorney added. Balkaran, who represents the Attorney General, continued, “The law simply says we cannot just let the applicant walk back onto the streets. The State must ensure that he  must be cured of that mental illness before we allow him back into the public.”

George Noreiga, 48, was arrested and charged in 1983 with the murder of his wife Allison Garcia-Noreiga at Moruga. He went on trial in 1986 before Justice Ivol Blackman at the San Fernando Assizes. He was found guilty, but insane. He was taken to the Carrera Island Prison where he stayed for eight years. In 1993, he was transferred to the Golden Grove State Prison where he remains as an inmate up to today. Through his attorneys Mark Seepersad and Gerald Ramdeen, Noreiga filed a constitutional motion asking that he be released. He is also contending that his detention under the Criminal Procedure Act is unconstitutional null and void.

Dr Iqbal Ghany, consultant psychiatrist at the St Ann’s Hospital, attached an affidavit and a report to Noreiga’s constitutional motion. In his report, Ghany said there were no major risk factors or further aggression in respect of Noreiga. “In view of the above, I am of the opinion that his release from prison would pose no danger to the public nor to himself.” But before submissions could be advanced, Balkaran indicated that she had two preliminary points to raise. One of them was cross-examining Ghany which she did in the Port-of-Spain Second Civil Court yesterday. Ghany said he interviewed Noreiga at the prison for about 40 minutes on December 16, 2003. He recalled that Noreiga suffered a stroke in 1981, but felt that he had fully recovered except for a speech impediment.

But Ghany said he could not remember testifying for Noreiga at his trial in 1986. “I don’t recall that at all,” Ghany told the court. But Balkaran asked the court to take judicial notice that the judgment of the Court of Appeal referred to Ghany’s evidence on Noreiga’s behalf at the trial. Ghany said he conducted no laboratory tests on Noreiga last December, but did mental tests to find out the prisoner’s level of intelligence and how he reacts with people. Ghany insisted that Noreiga never suffered from any mental illness prior to killing his wife.

“I am saying that the applicant was depressed. The stroke he suffered had quite a marked impact on his mental illness. He was quite distressed by this, he had a clinical depression. His wife rejected him. The stroke affected him mentally and physically.” In her submissions, Balkaran asked the court to throw out Noreiga’s motion, saying there were other remedies. She submitted that the motion was ill-conceived and an abuse of process. “Can this applicant say he was denied due process, that he was not treated fairly? He was given due process in accordance with the laws of the land. There was no violation of Section 4 (a) of the constitution,” she argued. Justice Stollmeyer will give his decision today.