POLICEMAN SURRENDERS

Within hours Sunil Tota-Maharaj, the policeman who was out on bail after being charged with the attempted murder of the teenager, was re-arrested by police at the office of his attorney, Prakash Ramadhar, and taken into custody.

Investigators said Tota-Maharaj will remain in custody pending the results of an autopsy on Caton’s body at the Forensic Science Centre, Port-of-Spain.

Caton, a student of the Siparia Comprehensive School, was shot in the head outside a bar at Egypt Village, Point Fortin, while Borough Day celebrations were in progress.

At his Egypt Village home yesterday, his father Mervyn Caton, 43, a contractor, said he had held hopes of his son’s recovery up to the last minute. Two days ago, he said, Caton was transferred from the Intensive Care Unit to the Neurology Ward but yesterday he consoled himself that his only son had died in peace. "I did not want him to live like a vegetable."

Caton’s mother Patricia Woods was in shock and remained secluded in her bedroom from where her sobbing could be heard. Woods is also recovering from a head injury received while travelling by car to visit her son in hospital.

Caton’s stepmother, also named Patricia, was the last to see the young man alive. Around noon on Wednesday she said she saw him move his leg, touch her hand and briefly open an eye. "I asked him to move his leg again and he did," she added.

After the shooting on May 6, Caton battled for life in the San Fernando Hospital but never regained consciousness.

The shooting of the young man sparked angry outbursts by Egypt villagers who marched from the village to the Point Fortin Police Station where Tota-Maharaj was being held before the charge was laid. Last Wednesday, May 11, Tota-Maharaj, a member of the Inter Agency Task Force, was taken before Senior Magistrate Hubert Charles to answer a charge of attempted murder. The magistrate remanded him into custody on the ground that Caton was warded in a critical condition. Charles requested a medical report on Caton’s condition. On Friday, May 13, however, Charles granted Tota-Maharaj bail in the sum of $750,000. After Caton died, Tota-Maharaj surrendered to the police.

Tota-Maharaj is the grandson of Maha Sabha secretary-general, Sat Maharaj, and son of Virmala Tota-Maharaj, former UNC Senator.