Accused admits:

DIEGO Martin murder accused Alicia Marsha Chunu claimed she willingly gave her lover Menon Hingoo, with whose murder she is charged, $40,000 to help him out of a financial bind.

The statement containing a comprehensive account of the couple’s relationship from its inception to the day before Hingoo’s body was found floating in the waters off Coast Guard Base in Chaguaramas on May 22, 2002, was admitted into evidence and read to the court yesterday.

Chunu, 30, of Rich Plain Road, Diego Martin is before Justice Herbert Volney at the Port-of-Spain First Criminal Court. She is being represented by attorney Ravi Rajcoomar while Debbie-Ann Bassaw is prosecuting. Cpl Pauline Phillips of the Homicide Bureau, who recorded the statement on May 31, 2002 and through whom the statement was admitted into evidence, testified yesterday.

The statement told of instructions given to Hingoo by his wife Jasodra to take legal steps to recover the money owed to him by Chunu’s parents and to get back all the money he had given to and spent on Chunu.

The money was needed to try to save the cash-strapped travel agency he purchased from his uncle at a cost of $250,000.

Chunu gave Hingoo $20,000 on two occasions and he gave her a receipt for $40,000 in her mother’s name, writing off the debt owed to him by her parents. The accused woman’s parents reportedly borrowed money from Hingoo several years ago to pay the mortgage on their house. It was shortly after, that the relationship between Chunu, who was 22 at the time, and Hingoo began. According to contents of the statement, they sometimes went to his El Socorro home during the day when his wife of 22 years was at work and his three sons were at school.

When Hingoo’s wife stopped working and his home was no longer available for the intimacies of their affair, the statement said, Chunu and Hingoo frequented Villa Maria in Maraval and the Cove Hotel in Chaguaramas.

Apart from her relationship with Hingoo Chunu was also involved in an intimate relationship with one of her cousins, with whom she had a son, the statement said. Hearing continues on Monday.