Witness: I was forced to move body

A STATE witness testified yesterday that double-murder accused Mookash Chandardath forced him at gunpoint to move a dead body from a cupboard.

Roger Thompson said Chandardath also threatened him when he (Thompson) found a dead body in the bathroom and ordered him to keep quiet. Chandardath and Zanna Andrews were charged with the murders of elderly couple Ursula Innis and husband Selwyn Grant in 1999. Last week, Andrews pleaded guilty to manslaughter for the killing of Grant, but not guilty to murdering Innis. The State accepted the plea, and Andrews was remanded into custody until sentencing. The trial is being heard before Justice Herbert Volney and a 12-member mixed jury in the San Fernando High Court. “He (Chandardath) tell me to hold the foot and he go hold the head. He pull out a piece of pipe, like a home-made gun and point it at me and tell me I have to tote. That is what he bring me here for,” Thompson testified.

Thompson, of Poco Alley, Siparia, said he met Chandardath at a bar, and the accused would buy drinks for him. He recalled it was around the first week in August 1999 that the accused took him and two men — one named “Andy,”  and the other “Baldhead” — to Allen Drive to move out some items from one house to another on the street. They moved a picture, sink, washing machine and some kitchen wares when the witness said he got a “stink smell” upon nearing a bathroom. Thompson said he opened the bathroom door and felt “a foot and toes”, and wire was tied on the foot. Thompson said when he inquired about the body, the accused told him not to tell anyone, and pulled out a gun from his waist and pointed it at him. “He (Chandardath) said it is between me and you,” the witness told the court. 

The following Monday, Chandardath took the witness drinking, then they alone returned to the house at Allen Drive where the accused showed him a big cupboard. When Chandardath opened the cupboard door, Thompson saw a body. He testified: “It look like a man. There were sores on the skin, like clot blood.” The accused again drew the gun for Thompson, and the witness said he helped Chandardath to carry the dead body outside. After two attempts, they fit it under a water tank from which the bottom had been cut out, then threw bush and sand around it. 

While under cross-examination from defence attorney Chateram Sinanan, Thompson revealed that police detained him six times while carrying out their investigations. Thompson said he was “beaten like a dog” by some policemen, but he was determined to tell the truth about what he knew. “All I know is I wanted to talk the truth and done,” Thompson said flatly. The decomposing bodies of the pensioners were found at their Penal home, and Chandardath and Andrews were subsequently charged with committing the murders on a date unknown between July 31 and September 17, 1999. Chandardath is represented by Sinanan, instructed by Farraz Mohammed. The Prosecution is led by acting Director of Public Prosecutions (South) Joan Honore-Paul. The trial continues today.