Sgt cross-examined for 4 hours

THREE witnesses took the stand at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Eighth Court yesterday as the preliminary inquiry into the conspiracy to murder charge brought against Jamaat Al Muslimeen leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, continued.

Bakr was charged on August 21, 2003 with conspiring to murder two expelled Jamaat members. The two men were shot and wounded on the evening of June 4 just outside the Movie Towne cineplex, Invaders Bay, Audrey Jeffers Highway. The matter is being heard by Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls. ASP Ruthven Paul of the San Fernando Bureau of Investigation, PC Roger Grant of the Port-of-Spain Police Photography Laboratory and Sgt Wayne Dick of the Port-of-Spain Homicide Bureau of Investigation were examined by Deputy DPP, Carla Brown Antoine and cross-examined by defence attorney, Pamela Elder. During her intense cross-examination of Dick, which lasted for over four hours, Elder invited him to refer to his pocket diary to enable him to better answer some of her questions.

She even went so far as to grant his request to look at an entry recorded in the station diary by asking McNicolls to have a police officer go over to the Sackville Street Homicide Office to get the diary. The matter was stood down while attorney with the DPP’s office, George Busby, went to get the diary. Busby returned about 15 minutes later and the hearing resumed. At approximately 4.30 pm, Elder told McNicolls that she had “a lot of ground to cover with this witness” and requested that the inquiry be halted for the day. Cross-examination of Dick will continue on Friday.