Fran­cis Joseph

Joel Fras­er, one of the 13 peo­ple charged with the mur­der of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man, wants to be ac­quit­ted even be­fore he faces his tri­al.Fras­er has gone be­fore the Port-of-Spain High Court, seek­ing ju­di­cial re­view of the de­ci­sion of Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls to com­mit him to stand tri­al at the As­sizes.

The ju­di­cial re­view case start­ed yes­ter­day be­fore Jus­tice Vashiest Kokaram, with Fras­er's at­tor­ney, Pamela El­der, SC, mak­ing her sub­mis­sions. To­day, the State's at­tor­ney, Dana See­ta­hal, SC, will re­spond. Fras­er is chal­leng­ing the de­ci­sion of Mc Nicolls, who com­mit­ted him to stand tri­al on Au­gust 6, 2008. He said that de­ci­sion was un­rea­son­able and ir­ra­tional, il­le­gal, null and void and of no ef­fect. He wants the com­mit­tal quashed and that he be freed of the charge. The 13 ac­cused have ap­peared in the High Court on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions for case man­age­ment con­fer­ence, but there is a de­lay as eight of them have no at­tor­neys and are de­pend­ing on le­gal aid lawyers. Fras­er said he was ar­rest­ed and charged, based on a writ­ten state­ment giv­en to the po­lice by one Keon Gloster. He said dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry, and un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, Gloster said he was not the au­thor of the state­ment which was ten­dered in­to ev­i­dence. Fras­er al­so stat­ed that dur­ing the cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of Jus­tice of the Peace, An­tho­ny Soulette, it be­came ev­i­dent that the statu­to­ry con­di­tions for the ad­mis­si­bil­i­ty of the Gloster state­ment were not sat­is­fied.

Fras­er point­ed out in the state­ment of Gloster, he (Fras­er) was im­pli­cat­ed in the mur­der. He said the state­ment in­di­cat­ed that he was present in the "Black Al­bum," while one of the oth­er ac­cused shot Naipaul-Cool­man in her chest. The pur­port­ed state­ment, ac­cord­ing to Fras­er, al­leged that he was present when the oth­er ac­cused dis­mem­bered the woman, even­tu­al­ly dis­pos­ing her body parts in the up­per La Puer­ta area in Diego Mar­tin. Fras­er said the Chief Mag­is­trate, de­spite the re­cant­i­ng of the state­ment from Gloster, still found that a pri­ma fa­cie had been made out against him.

He said the Chief Mag­is­trate did not take in­to ac­count that Gloster said he had nev­er seen Naipaul-Cool­man, that the state­ment was not his, and that he nev­er saw any­one shoot the woman. Fras­er said the state­ment of the wit­ness was so man­i­fest­ly un­re­li­able and dis­cred­it­ed as a re­sult of cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, that it would be dan­ger­ous and un­safe to send him to tri­al.

The ac­cused

Sher­von Pe­ters, Kei­da Gar­cia, Mar­lon Trim­ming­ham, Earl Trim­ming­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­to­nio Charles, Joel Fras­er, Lyn­don James, Al­lan Mar­tins, De­von Pe­ters, Raphael Williams, An­tho­ny Dwayne Gloster, and Jamille Gar­cia.

The of­fence

Dur­ing the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 18, 2006, to May 12, 2007, at La Puer­ta Av­enue, Diego Mar­tin, they mur­dered Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man, 52, chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, of Xtra Foods Lim­it­ed.

The woman was snatched from her Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, home. The kid­nap­pers de­mand­ed a $3 mil­lion ran­som for her safe re­turn. Al­though a part was paid, she was not freed. Her body was nev­er found.