‘A dark and evil mind,’ says judge

WHATEVER caused Eugesh Sookhoo to attempt to murder teenager Tishura Chinnia will remain a mystery, but the motive was dark and evil, and sprung from an equally dark and evil mind, Justice Melville Baird said yesterday as he sentenced Sookhoo, a Tortuga gardener, to serve 15 years in jail with hard labour.

The victim’s father, Holly Chinnia, choked back tears when asked to comment on the sentence. “I can’t really say”, he whispered, but agreed that justice was done to his daughter’s attacker. Tishura Chinnia did not turn up in court yesterday, but was present on Monday when the jury found Sookhoo guilty of attempting to murder her. She was also present throughout the week-long trial in the San Fernando First Criminal Assizes. Justice Baird summed up the week-long trial as a case of “shattered dreams on one hand, and dark and mysterious evil on the other.” “Tishura Chinnia was a 16-year-old girl with all hopes and aspirations of a teenager and had everything going for her. To all appearances she was living in comfortable circumstances and was looking forward to a bright future. “But in one savage and pernicious moment, Tishura was made to suffer a drastic reversal of fortune at the hands of the accused. The question is Why? Why?”

Justice Baird noted that Tishura was not “courting disaster in some disreputable place” when she fell victim to Sookhoo. “The agonising twist of fate came while she was asleep in her bed. Tishura was asleep when calamity came at the hands of the accused,” he told the court. Justice Baird said the motive for the attack on the teenager was “shrouded in mystery” and known only by “the Almighty and the accused himself”.  Chinnia, now 19, was left physically disabled as a result of the incident on February 11, 2001, when she awoke to find Sookhoo strangling her. Chinnia bravely fought Sookhoo, who is almost 20 years her senior, as he repeatedly told her he wanted to kill her.  PC Steve Haynes of the Gran Couva Police Station laid the charge. The judge expressed sympathy to the victim’s parents, whom he said would remember how their daughter was before the attack and see how she has changed after the attempt on her life. “That would have to be disastrous to the highest,” he remarked.