Cassel: Did Elder pluck it out of the air?

THREE weeks ago, lead defence attorney Pamela Elder SC dropped what the defence called a bombshell concerning telephone records relating to the State’s main witness Brent Miller. During her cross-examination of Miller on February 3, Elder produced a Fraud Check Report from TSTT to show that no calls were made or received on Miller’s cell phone on the morning of June 4, 2003, when it is alleged that he was one of the co-conspirators at a house in Diamond Vale, Diego Martin, plotting to kill two former Jamaat members.

Elder even suggested that Miller was not in St Ann’s or Diego Martin that day, but in Chatham or Biche, according to code 441 based on calls recorded by TSTT. Elder even asked the prosecution to look at the TSTT records and decide where they were going with the case. There was jubilation among Yasin Abu Bakr’s followers that day, sensing that the case was all but over. Lead prosecutor Sir Timothy Cassel QC promised Justice Mark Mohammed to look into the matter during the long Carnival weekend. Everyday, eyes were on the British QC for a response. Nothing came. It came yesterday. The State produced fresh evidence from two TSTT managers who told a silent and packed court that code 441 does not mean Chatham nor Biche — and further more — it just does not exist.

After the first manager, Tony Ramgoolam, had testified, Cassel was not satisfied with the line of cross-examination by Elder’s junior Owen Hinds Jr. He asked, “Did Mrs Elder make this up?” Cassel continued, “We don’t want the court to be misled. This witness has totally destroyed what 441 is, that is Chatham-Biche. He should be asked what he knows about 441. I am appalled; that 441 about Chatham-Biche, did Mrs Elder pluck that out of the air?” In response, Elder said that as an attorney, she does not have to pluck anything out of the air and put it to the witness. She said the report came with the number 441. “I am going to call the evidence why this was said. That report was given to us by the State with the 441 code.

We did not prepare this report. This report was given to us by Mrs Carla Brown-Antoine at the preliminary inquiry at the Magistrates’ Court. This witness does not know anything about the report. My friend should rest assured that we will be calling our witness on this issue.” Ramgoolam, who is the mobile network development manager at TSTT, said Miller’s number 752-4338 operated under the TDMA system and not the GSM. He said there were 106 cell sites in north and south. Cassel said it was suggested that cell site 441 was situated in Chatham-Biche. Ramgoolam replied, “There is no such cell site with a number 441.” He revealed that Chatham’s cell site was 127 and there was none for Biche.

Cross-examined by Hinds, Ramgoolam said he was requested last Thursday to look for records for cell number 752-4338. He said he was asked to look for the call detail records (CDR) of that number, but could not do so. “We keep records for three months, not two years. I was asked to provide a record for June 2003.” Ramgoolam said the security system was working well in 2003 and that the CDR was well protected. The next witness was Dianand Ganeessingh, the business assurance project  manager at TSTT. In June 2003, he was the systems administrator at the company. When asked about the code 441 for Chatham-Biche, Ganeessingh said, “I never heard that.” He continued, “441 does not mean anything. That is a meaningless number.”

Ganeessingh was unable to say what codes represented Chatham and/or Biche. Under cross-examination, Ganeessingh said although the code 441 was meaningless, everything else on the report was accurate. He said he was asked on February 10 to give a statement in this case. He said based on the TSTT records, the first cell phone call to Miller’s phone was at 1.22 pm on June 4, 2003. The first call made from a land line to Miller was at 2.10 pm that day. Ganeessingh was certain, based on the records, that no calls were received by Miller between 10 am and 10.30 am as was stated by Miller in his evidence in court. Miller said he had received a call from David “Buffy” Millard around that time to attend a meeting in Diamond Vale. Ganeessingh said he was the only person who had access to the Fraud Detection Server, apart from the person who saw about the software. He said he did not delete any number from the record, neither did the person in charge of the software. “I have no reason to believe anything was deleted or tampered with by the system administrator. The State will close its case today after calling its final witness to rebutt the evidence of Bakr’s alibi that he was at Petrotrin on June 4, 2003, when it was alleged that he  plotted to kill two former members of the Jamaat.