State witness interrogated by cops

Anisa Alexis, a clerk-typist with the Ministry of Health, said one day after she saw Cadette at a gas station in Mt Hope, she was held by the police at the work place of Cadette’s sister.

Cadette, 42, is before Justice Anthony Carmona in the Port-of-Spain Fourth Criminal Court charged with the murder of his wife Grace Barbour-Cadette and his one-year-old son Jabari on March 10, 2002, at Roxborough Street, Diego Martin.

State attorneys Kathy-Ann Waterman-Latchoo and Joy Balkaran are prosecuting, while Hayden St Clair Douglas and Wendy Dougdeen-Bally appear for Cadette. Hearing resumes tomorrow. Alexis said she gave a statement to the police on March 14, 2002. Two days later, she made a statutory declaration. After that, she was taken to the West End Police Station. She stayed there for hours before she was able to see the accused.

Alexis, who hobbled to court on crutches, said she was picked up by the police on March 14, 2002. She did not call the police, but said she had told Cadette’s sister of her meeting with the accused the night before.

She agreed that the police were interested in her. She admitted that she was interrogated, but was never told that she had done anything wrong. She had information about Cadette who was wanted by the police for killing his wife and son.

Alexis accepted that she never gave the police any information before she was picked up. She agreed that she rendered assistance to the accused. She said she was never informed that she could have been considered an accessory. "I never thought I could have been in trouble," she told the jury. Alexis said when she met the accused at the gas station in Mt Hope, she knew that Cadette’s wife and son had been chopped to death. She had read about it in the newspapers and saw it on television. She also knew that Cadette was the prime and only suspect.

Questioned by State attorney Joy Balkaran, Alexis said she did not go to the police because she did not know what to do.

"The information I had, I did not know if I would have been classified as an accomplice."

Balkaran closed the State’s case yesterday. She did not call two witnesses — Moses Barbour and PC Hilton Wheeler — both of whom, she said, were out of the country.