Set Emily’s accused killer free

"Taken from our C O U R T section.

AN attorney representing Marlon King who is charged with murdering his (King) step-daughter Emily Anamanthodo, yesterday asked the presiding magistrate to free King if the prosecution does not start the case in a reasonable time.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington replied to attorney El Farouk Hosein’s request saying he (Wellington) would have made the same request if he was in his (Hosein) predicament. King, 33, of Marabella, is charged with killing four-year-old Emily on May 15.

An autopsy revealed the child was beaten to death. Yesterday, Hosein told Wellington in the San Fernando First Court that he had been retained to represent King who was unrepresented in previous court appearances. State Prosecutor Kathy-Ann Alexander informed the magistrate that she was appointed to represent the State. Hosein made the request for King to be discharged after Alexander told the court the State will be ready to start in a month’s time.

Alexander explained to the court that she only had an “expedited” file which did not contain all the statements in the case.

Asked by the magistrate how many statements were contained in the file, Alexander replied there were four. “Only four,” Wellington asked. “This is since May 18 and this is July and you have no files?” the magistrate continued.

Hosein then asked Wellington whether he was considering his request to have King discharged. “If I (were) in your predicament I would have made the same request,” Wellington said. Alexander suggested the case start although they did not have all the files, which included the official post-mortem report.

“There is more to it than that. We need to have all the statements,” the magistrate told the State attorney. Hosein said he observed that the prosecution did not cite any witnesses and asked that the prosecution provide him with names of the witnesses to be called in the case.

Alexander said that at this stage she did not even know who the witnesses were. Hosein complained to Wellington that the persons investigating the matter were not doing their work.

The attorney asked Wellington to discharge King if the prosecution was not ready to proceed in a reasonable time. Wellington, however, adjourned the matter to July 12.