If you believe Hypolite convict Dhanraj

Justice Paula Mae Weeks will spend some time today summing up the Dhanraj Singh murder case to the jury. Apart from giving them instructions on the law which they must accept from her and nobody else, she will summarise the evidence adduced in the case. She will go into some details reviewing the prosecution’s case as presented from the witness stand and the defence’s case among other things. The jury will then retire to deliberate on the facts of the case. 

 During the address to the jury by the prosecution lead counsel Sir Timothy Cassel QC on Tuesday announced: “Somebody wanted Hansraj Sumairsingh dead. Somebody planned to kill him at his beach house, went to the beach house armed with a .38 revolver, put two bullets in his body and left him for dead. If it was not Hypolite or Chen then the real murderer(s) are walking around free; happy that they are not on trial; happy that Dhanraj Singh is standing trial for the murder.” Dhanraj, a former government minister is on trial for the murder of Sumairsingh before Weeks in the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court. The State is alleging that Dhanraj hired two Muslimeen hitmen, Elliot “Abdullar” Hypolite and Steven “Chen” Cummings, to kill Sumairsingh. The defence is saying it is a “frame-up.” Cassel in his address said the defence is alleging an elaborate plan, but asked if that were really the case. He said the State’s case is that Dhanraj ordered a murder and offered money for it to be carried out.

To the jury, he said: “As I told you in opening, the State’s case is based substantially or wholly on Hypolite since if you believe Hypolite then you will convict Dhanraj Singh.” He encouraged the jury to  approach Hypolite’s evidence with the most extreme care and caution.  He said it may be that they would reject the crazy suggestion of a conspiracy to get Dhanraj but they would still have to believe Hypolite. “He is or was a contract killer, a hit man,” Cassel said. He told us that when he gave evidence and I told you that when I opened. As Ladyship (judge) will tell you, the State cannot choose its witnesses, and by the nature of the crime and the evidence available to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), the State has to use, particularly in a contract killing, witnesses who are unsavory, who come from the belly of the underworld. Without such witnesses, many criminals would be free and not in jail today. He explained that to comply with his immunity, Hypolite had to give the same version of evidence given in Court —  that version has to be the truth. He said the one condition that Hudson-Phillips did not remind them of was that the statutory declaration must be true. If that version of events is not the truth, Hypolite will be in breach of his immunity and if his evidence found to be untrue then he will be in very serious trouble.

Cassel recalled that Hudson-Phillips had pointed out in cross-examination that evidence against Hypolite in the Magistrates’ Court was weak to non-existent and had asked why Hypolite needed an immunity. “So why did Hypolite confess to this murder in the first place, if the evidence was so slim?” On a legal issue raised by the defence when Hypolite admitted that he had no intention to kill, Cassel argued: “if he goes there with a gun and someone dies, whatever his specific intention was, then he is guilty of murder. If he had nothing to do with murder, what possible advantage does he have to get from admitting to murder? Why implicate a man, Dhanraj, whom he did not even know just because Dhanraj’s name had been put forward earlier as a suspect?” Cassel admitted: “Hudson-Phillips made the proper point that there is a discrepancy. For you to say if the discrepancy destroys Hypolite’s evidence, you have to resolve it in whatever way you think right. Odd that Hypolite can describe the car, the man who spoke to Kavita (Dhanraj’s daughter) and gave the description of Chen,  if he were not there himself... What is absolutely crucial is that the same make of car seen by Watson was used.”

Referring to the medical evidence of pathologist Hughvon des Vignes and certain discrepancies which conflicted with Hypolite’s account of the shooting, Cassel told the jury: “If these apparent discrepancies can’t be resolved and you do not believe Hypolite, then it will not take you long to acquit. But it will not take you long to decide that it’s unlikely that Hypolite will confess to murder.” Cassel said a vital question is whether Hypolite is telling the truth about Dhanraj. “It is not my task to persuade you to believe Hypolite, but you have seen him, his demeanour, his attitude, his rationale for his answers and  how he stood up under cross-examination by the best advocate (Hudson-Phillips) that TT has to offer.” On another discrepancy about Hypolite’s first alleged meeting with Dhanraj, Cassel said the only discrepancy between Jokhoo and Hypolite is the date. “Is it enough to cause me to have grave doubts about Hypolite’s evidence? Cassel said some of Dhanraj’s evidence was “plainly unbelievable, some equivocal when you would have expected him to be firm and some of it pure evasion.”