Why was Dr Chandra killed?

THE ABRUPT end on Thursday of the trial of two  persons, Seeromani Maraj-Naraynsingh and Elton Ramasir, accused of killing Dr Chandra Naraynsingh, is hardly the end of the matter. Legal circles and the general public have questions, and rightly so, bearing in mind all that has happened and the people who for one reason or another, became involved. Start with Chief Justice Sat Sharma who allegedly tried to influence the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Geoffrey Henderson not to proceed with the case against Dr Vijay Naraynsingh, prominent vascular surgeon. Complaints against Sharma were made to Prime Minister Patrick Manning by both the DPP and Attorney General John Jeremie. This led to Manning asking President George Maxwell Richards to appoint a tribunal to investigate Sharma and possibly to have him impeached. Sharma responded by filing for judicial review to stop the tribunal.

Then, there is the judge, Mr Justice Herbert Volney, who swiftly refused the DPP’s application to re-indict Vijay Naraynsingh after the magistrate at the preliminary inquiry had freed him on the charge of murder, but committed his wife Maraj-Naraynsingh and businessman Ramasir to stand trial. Volney also refused to recuse himself from hearing the trial, although he had been the judge who sentenced to life the man who confessed that he had killed Chandra Naraynsingh. Finally, there was the unusual step taken by Volney on Thursday when he asked the jury whether they wished to hear more or to stop the case. In all this, one thing is certain — Shawn Parris brutally murdered Dr Chandra Naraynsingh at the Langmore Health Foundation. What remains a mystery is who ordered the hit. Parris did not wake up one morning and decide on his own to kill Chandra Naraynsingh.

He didn’t even know the woman and according to his evidence in court, he had been shown her house and work place by the three persons who were freed. He contended at the recently concluded trial that Maraj-Naraynsingh and Ramasir hired and paid him to see the woman dead. The killing of Chandra Naraynsingh on June 29, 1994, shocked the country and became one of the most talked about mysteries in Trinidad. Who was Chandra Naraynsingh? She was a doctor who lived with her parents in Canada. While there she met Vijay Naraynsingh and shortly after, they became engaged and they moved to Trinidad. Out of the marriage came one daughter, Anamika. One person who was devastated by her death was attorney Vernon De Lima. On Friday, De Lima told Sunday Newsday that he did not sleep the night when the case abruptly ended.

He still thinks about the manner in which Chandra Naraynsingh was killed. He described her as “my client.” He said that one day in May 1994, he got a call from attorney Suren Capildeo, asking him (De Lima) to represent someone in a matter. “I said no problem, it was work, I couldn’t say no. So, I arranged the meeting for the following day at my chambers at Temple Court at 31 Abercromby Street. The next day, Suren Capildeo came with two other attorneys Leslie Lucky-Samaroo and Carol Gobin (now a judge). Also there was a woman whom I described as one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. “I met the lady, her name was Chandra Naraynsingh, and I agreed to take her case. She was divorcing Dr Vijay Naraynsingh and there was a dispute over money. The things which I heard from her shocked me. I told her what had to be done and they left. There was another meeting five days before she died, again at my chambers.

“At that meeting, I expressed concern for her. I told her that based on what she had told me, her life was in danger. I was really scared for her. I even asked her if she had a gun. She said she applied for one at the St Joseph Police Station and was told that the Commissioner of Police had to deal with that. “During that meeting, Chandra told me that while her husband was away, she woke in the middle of the night and found a man in her bed. She screamed and kicked and chased the man away. She said that man, whom she knew, promised to ‘do for her.’ “I told her she had to be extremely careful, that her life appeared to be in danger. I just had a bad vibe about this. The case in which I was representing her was fixed for sometime around the tenth of July (1994).

“On the night of the 29th of June I got a telephone call from Suren Capildeo. He said, ‘Capitan, your worst fears have been realised.’ I asked him what he meant by that, and he said Chandra was murdered earlier that afternoon. “I asked him what had happened and he said that a man with a sling on his arm, pretending to be a patient, had shot her where she worked. I said, ‘My God, this poor woman, I just knew it.’ To this day, I still think about this lady, who was really scared for her life and was trying to do something about it. It is something I cannot stop thinking and talking about,” De Lima added. Chandra Naraynsingh was shot dead as she was getting into her car outside the Langmore Health Foundation at Palmyra on June 29, 1994. The gunman was identified as Shawn Parris through a fingerprint he had left on her car that fateful afternoon.

Several persons were detained by the police shortly after the killing, but no one was charged. Parris could not be found. He had fled the country apparently with the assistance of the person(s) who hired him to kill her. The investigation remained open for years and many people felt that there would not have been a prosecution, successful or otherwise. But sometime in 2000, Parris was arrested in the United States while committing a felony. When Interpol checks were carried out, the US authorities discovered there was a warrant for Parris’ arrest for murder in Trinidad. At first, Parris resisted his extradiction to Trinidad, but because he was deemed to have overstayed his visit to the US, he was escorted and deported to Trinidad, where on arrival at Piarco, he was taken into custody. Parris was eventually charged with murder. After a preliminary inquiry at the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court, he was committed to stand trial at the San Fernando Assizes.

But in February 2004, an astonishing development happened. Parris confessed to killing Chandra Naraynsingh and pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter. Here was the man who carried out one of the most daring and brutal murders, getting off lightly with a manslaughter plea. But there was a reason for this. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted the manslaughter plea and Justice Herbert Volney wasted no time in sending Parris to jail, not to be released before the expiration of 30 years. Legal circles buzzed. It was believed that with the hitman off to jail, the person(s) who hired Parris would never be known. But somebody had to have hired Parris and with a motive. Behind the scenes, the police continued investigations into Chandra Naraynsingh’s death. They wanted to get the person(s) who hired Parris. Months after the Parris sentence, a letter concerning the Chandra Naraynsingh killing from an attorney reached the desk of Chief Justice Sat Sharma.

Sharma sought and held audiences with Director of Public Prosecutions Geoffrey Henderson and Attorney General John Jeremie concerning this matter. Sharma said he was concerned that without investigating the contents of the letter, the police were planning to arrest and charge Vijay Naraynsingh. Henderson was concerned with the CJ’s involvement and reported the matter to the Attorney General. While this was going on, Henderson gave advice to the police to charge Maraj Naraynsingh with the murder of his second wife. Days later, Naraynsingh’s third wife Seeromani Maraj-Naraynsingh and a Cipero Street businessman Elton Ramasir were also charged with Chandra’s murder. That was in December 2004. While the preliminary inquiry was in progress in San Fernando, there was an exchange of letters among the Chief Justice, the DPP, and the Attorney General. Jeremie then forwarded a complaint to the Prime Minister concerning the matter.

In accordance with section 137 of the constitution, the Prime Minister decided to report the complaint to the President so that an investigation could take place into Sharma’s alleged conduct. The Prime Minister had already consulted with three foreigners to comprise the tribunal to investigate the matter. While the matter was in the hands of the President, Sharma filed for judicial review of the decision of the Prime Minister to report the matter to the President. The High Court also granted an order preventing the tribunal from investigating the matter until the judicial review case was determined. The President held his hand on this. A battery of Senior Counsel was retained by Sharma, while the Prime Minister went for a British Queen’s Counsel to represent him. The matter started before Justice Humphrey Stollmeyer and was suddenly transferred to Justice Carlton Best.

Under the new rules of the Supreme Court, case management hearings were conducted in private and without media scrutiny. Two mediators were hired — retired Justice of Appeal Ulric Cross and Senior Counsel Allan Alexander. That has broken down and a date will now be set for the hearing of Sharma’s judicial review case, in open court. At the close of the prosecution’s case at the preliminary inquiry in March 2005, Naraynsingh was discharged, but his wife and Ramasir were committed to stand trial. Eight months after the committal and without a date for the trial, Maraj-Naraynsingh filed for judicial review of the decision of the DPP not to indict her. Eight months is a relatively short time to wait for a trial date, but the DPP moved with dispatch and filed the indictment and a cause list hearing was fixed for December 2 in the San Fernando High Court. Volney who was sitting in Port-of-Spain, rushed down to San Fernando to preside over the cause list hearing. He was the judge assigned to the San Fernando First Criminal Court for January 2006.

The trial was then fixed for January 3, an unprecedented example of forwarding a murder trial. The DPP filed a notice to have the trial transferred to Port-of-Spain. When the case was called in San Fernando at the beginning of this month, Special Prosecutor Dana Seetahal made two applications. She asked the judge to recuse himself from hearing the case, and she asked that the case be transferred to Port-of-Spain. She cited reasons such as security concerns and flooding on the Uriah Butler Highway. Volney turned down both applications and the trial started in the San Fernando court.
The prosecution’s case depended on two main witnesses — Junior Morris and Shawn Parris. Parris contended that at a meeting in San Fernando, he was given $10,000 and a gun by Maraj-Naraynsingh and Ramasir to kill Chandra Naraynsingh and her child. Parris said he went to Maracas, St Joseph, and after seeing Chandra Naraynsingh and her daughter, aborted the mission. It was then decided to go to Palmyra, in a car driven by Junior Morris where Parris shot and killed Chandra Naraynsingh.

After the prosecution closed its case last Tuesday, defence attorney, Karl Hudson-Phillips QC and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj SC submitted to Justice Volney that he had the power to advise the jury to stop the case prematurely if they disbelieved the evidence presented by the State. Seetahal objected strongly, but her arguments were disregarded. When hearing resumed on Thursday morning, Volney put the issue to the jury. He said, “at the close of the prosecution, the jury is entitled, depending upon the view held of the evidence led by the prosecution, to form the judgment that the State has not led evidence on which it may convict.” He continued, “the jury may in the circumstance at the stage when the case is closed, make the judgment that it cannot on the evidence led by the State, render a verdict of guilty.” Volney then asked the foreman of the jury if they wished to retire. After retiring for 40 minutes, the jury returned and the foreman said, “we wish to close the case.”

Seetahal objected again saying that the practice of informing jurors that they have such an entitlement was no longer a good one. But it was too late. The judge then directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty in favour of the two accused. That was the end of the matter, and unlike the Brad Boyce case in which the judge (Volney) stopped the case on his own, the State may find it difficult to appeal the decision in the Naraynsingh case, because of the jury decision. Many people were shocked at Volney’s decision. Former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who represented Ramasir, said the time has come for the State to look at how they use accomplice evidence in such trials. But Maharaj was AG when accomplice evidence was used to convict Dole Chadee and eight members of his gang for four murders. Maharaj was the AG when these nine men were hanged at the Port-of-Spain State Prison in June 1999. Maharaj was the AG when accomplice evidence was used to convict Naresh Boodram and Joey Ramiah for the murder of “Tooks” and “Bulls”.

Maharaj was the AG when accomplice evidence was used against ten men who were convicted of the murder of Thackoor Boodram (Dole Chadee’s brother). The only difference in this case was that unlike the other cases, Parris was the actual killer. In 2004, Volney threw out a murder case against three men after the accomplice witness was the actual killer to testify against his cohorts in a murder in Diego Martin. Maharaj was the AG when an accomplice witness was used against former Government Minister Dhanraj Singh for murder. Singh was freed. The abrupt end to the trial on Thursday has been the biggest talking point, both in legal circles and the general public. Maraj-Naraynsingh and Ramasir have gone free. Shawn Parris, the confessed killer, is back in jail. What remains to be answered is simply this — who gave Parris the order to murder this beautiful woman? Will justice ever be served?