Third juror in 3 days sent home

FOR THE third consecutive day, Justice Mark Mohammed was forced to send home an alternate juror in the conspiracy to murder trial of Jamaat al Muslimeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr. When all felt that the sequestered jury was better off after last Friday’s inquiry by the trial judge, up came another application yesterday by a male alternate. With this juror sent home, just two alternates remain at the sideline of the common nine-member panel. Two alternates requested and were exempted last Thursday and Friday after informing Justice Mohammed at the inquiry that all was not well with them.

This prompted the judge to hold an in-camera inquiry with the remaining jurors. As Justice Mohammed opened up the floor, a barrage of problems popped out. The jurors were frank and forthright as they related the horrors of being locked away at a Port-of-Spain hotel. In the end, the jurors got their television sets back in their room; unedited copies of the three daily newspapers, the use of the gym and swimming pool, extra time to meet with relatives, internet access for one juror, and the use of the telephone.

When he adjourned hearing on Friday, Justice Mohammed hoped that everything would have gone smoothly with the jurors over the weekend. When he resumed hearing yesterday, he informed attorneys that there was a matter he needed to raise and asked the jury to leave the courtroom. It was another application for exemption. He conducted the inquiry in an empty courtroom on the second floor of the Hall of Justice. This inquiry lasted two hours before Justice Mohammed returned and said he was exempting the alternate for the reasons stated in his application. When the judge announced that he was discharging the juror, the alternate stepped lively from the jury box and with a smile on his face, began a hasty retreat out of the courtroom. His service had ended and he was returning to normal life. The case resumed when Sgt Wayne Dick took the witness stand for the third day.

During yesterday’s hearing, Dick faced further cross-examination from lead defence attorney Pamela Elder SC. Last week, Elder referred to a murder case in which three accused were freed by Madame Justice Paula Mae Weekes on the ground of the involuntariness of the confessional statements. Yesterday, Elder produced a Court of Appeal decision dated July 15, 2004, in which  15-year-old Keston Adams, who was convicted of murder, was set free. Elder put to Dick that the only evidence in the trial against Adams were two statements — one written and the other oral — both allegedly given to Dick by Adams.

Elder pointed out that after Adams was convicted and sentenced before Justice Weekes, the Court of Appeal comprising Chief Justice Sat Sharma, Justice Roger Hamel-Smith, and Justice Stanley John, acquitted Adams and criticised Sgt Dick’s conduct. In the judgment, Justice John pointed out that Sgt Dick recorded a statement from Adams before the arrival of the Justice of the Peace, although he (Dick) told the appellant he wanted the JP to be present. Justice John felt that Sgt Dick ought not to have commenced the recording of the statement before the arrival of the Justice of the Peace. Dick completed his evidence. Hearing resumes this morning.