Lawyer sings ‘Bun Dem’ at arson trial

Senior prosecutor Wayne Rajbansie told a jury yesterday that arson accused Peter Mc Donald committed a malicious act, designed to cause chaos, when he set Excellent Stores City Centre on fire, so that he could loot the cash register. And even though the entire store burnt down, he still did not get the chance to loot. He implored the jury to reject Mc Donald’s evidence — that he was passing through the smoking store which was empty when he came upon the cash register, and he decided to loot it — as ludicrous. Rajbansie said even Mc Donald’s tale that he only saw smoke and not fire was absurd. He said what Mc Donald was trying to do was to distance himself from the fire because he set it. He asked, “Why would anybody want to go into a burning building?” When you see smoke, you don’t run into a burning building, you run out.

But Mc Donald was behaving like a moth drawn to a flame.” He reminded the jury that even after Mc Donald was chased out of the building after his failed attempt to loot a cash register, he remained on the road looking at the building. Rajbansie suggested that the reason he was still “sticking around” was for an opportunity to loot. Rajbansie said the case reminded him of Black Stalin’s calypso “Bun Dem” and suggested that an additional verse would sound something like this, “Peter wait, Peter wait, look the Excellent Store out by the gate. Peter wait, Peter wait, no matter what you do, Franco building going in the fire too.” Franco Lee Chung is the owner of Excellent Store.