State loses appeal

He thanked the judges after the State’s appeal was dismissed and embraced his attorney Richard Mason. Samad was one of several police officers who went to George Street, Cunupia, on February 5, 2003, to execute a search warrant at Bernard Albarado’s home. At the time he was armed with an Uzi sub machine gun which he claimed was accidentally fired resulting in the death of Albarado.

In a majority ruling yesterday, Justices of Appeal Alice Yorke- Soo Hon and Mark Mohammed held that the judge was correct not to send the case to the jury since the prosecution failed in its duty to establish that a prima facie case had been made out against Samad. “In this case, the direct evidence and the medical evidence are in violent conflict,” Justice Yorke-Soo Hon said.

She held that by withdrawing the case from the jury, the judge acted in the best interest of justice and did not usurp the jury’s function as the State claimed in its appeal. “Before getting to the stage of inviting the jury to consider the evidence, the prosecution must have established a prima facie case. The difficulty for the prosecution is that they were unable to pass this first hurdle because there was a material defect in that they were unable to produce any evidence to support the trajectory of the bullet and explain the exact manner in which the deceased met his death,” Yorke-Soo Hon said.

She also held that the evidence of the three eye witnesses was inconsistent with the evidence of the pathologist. Justice of Appeal Rajendra Narine dissented. Albarado’s wife Sharon Albarado, testified that as her husband got up from where he was sitting, a shot was fired. It struck Albarado in the back, exited and struck a washing machine.

Another witness claimed Albarado was in the process of getting up when he was shot while a third witness gave a different account of what took place. A post mortem report, prepared by forensic pathologist Dr Hughvon des Vignes, revealed that the bullet entered the left side of Albarado’s body and moved in an upward trajectory through his body and was then lodged in the knob of a washing machine one metre away.

Samad’s case was that he tripped and as he was falling, in an effort to break the fall, he relaxed his grip on the front of the firearm and while going down he grabbed the firearm and the strap snapped. There was then a loud explosion and the firearm discharged one round before he fell to the ground.

According to Samad’s account, after his fall he realised Albarado had been shot. Albarado was taken to the Chaguanas Health Facility where he was pronounced dead on arrival. Samad was on suspension after he was charged with manslaughter, following a coroner’s inquest which ended in December 2004. Attorney Travers Sinanan represented the State at the appeal.