‘Hit’ placed on ex-wife, lover

Basdeo ‘Bas’ Ramlochan and Siewkumar Chankerpersad went on trial for the murders of Ramlochan’s wife Sunita, 29, and her lover Rahim Abraham, 46, who were shot dead on October 15, 2006.

Sunita and Abraham had returned to their Kuldip Trace, Fyzabad home at about 11 pm, after attending a function at the Divali Nagar. About five minutes after they arrived home, the jury heard, they were shot dead. In presenting the State’s case to Justice Malcolm Holdip yesterday, prosecutor Stacy Lallo- Chong said Sunita was Ramlochan’s wife who left the matrimonial home to live with Abraham.

Lallo-Chong said the prosecution will call witnesses to testify that Sunita’s body was found on a bed and Abraham was on the ground with his back against the bedroom wall. She said police will testify that on December 18, 2006, Chankerpersad confessed that he was involved in hiring people, at Ramlochan’s behest, to kill the couple.

The prosecutor told Justice Holdip and the jury that Homicide detectives also spoke to Ramlochan, who confessed that he tried to get people to murder his wife and her lover.

She said the prosecution would also call people who would tell the court about conversations they had with Ramlochan on the plot to murder Sunita.

Lallo-Chong said that about five months before the murders, Sunita left Ramlochan and went to live with Abraham in the ground floor of her father’s house. Sunita’s father Thackoopersad Ramsamooj, the court heard, told police that about five minutes after Abraham, Sunita and her daughter arrived home from the Divali Nagar, he heard Sunita bawl out, “Bas, whey yuh doing here?” Ramsamooj went downstairs and saw two people, but could not see their faces. He went into the bedroom and saw his daughter lying on the bed and Abraham sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. The State called Ag Cpl Nigel Carmody, who testified that he and other officers responded to a report of a shooting at St John’s Trace.

He said Ramsamooj took them to a bedroom on the ground floor of the house where they saw Abraham, clad in jockey shorts, sitting on the floor with gunshot wounds to his face and neck. Sunita was lying on the bed. The State also called Victor Joefield, a retired police photographer, through whom a set of photographs were tendered and shown to the jury. Attorneys Bindra Dolsingh and Rekha Ramjit are representing Chankerpersad and Ramlochan respectively. The trial continues tomorrow.