Concealing murder victim

CHIEF MAGISTRATE Sherman Mc Nicolls has given the prosecution one final chance to appear, otherwise he would dispose of a case in which a man is charged with concealing the body of a kidnap and murder victim. When the case was called in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court yesterday, no one appeared for the prosecution. The accused, Garth O’Brien, was present with his attorney Selwyn Ross.

Police prosecutor Sgt Winston Dillon said he was embarrassed because he had received information a long time ago that the file had been sent to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

It was on April 4 that Dillon told the court State attorney Nigel Pilgrim was appointed to prosecute the case. But nothing happened since then. Neither Pilgrim nor the complainant Corporal Michael Veronique, turned up yesterday. As a result, Ross asked the magistrate to dismiss the charge against his client. He said he had been hearing the same thing over and over and nothing was being done. Mc Nicolls said he was prepared to give the prosecution one last chance to put its house in order. Failure to do so, the case would be disposed from the court list. Hearing was adjourned to today.

O’Brien, 31, of Belmont Valley Road, Belmont, was remanded on $20,000 bail. It is alleged that O’Brien removed the body of businessman Gerald Gopaul from Santa Cruz and dumped it at Tram Trail Road in St Augustine. Gopaul was kidnapped from the Diamond Recreation Bar in San Fernando on July 8, last year. He was found dead by soldiers 11 days later wrapped in plastic. Two soldiers and two civilians have already been charged with Gopaul’s murder. Several others were charged with his kidnapping.

O’Brien was charged with being an accessory after the fact, that is, concealing Gopaul’s body.