Fran­cis Joseph

?Wash­ing­ton at­tor­ney Steve Kiersh found it strange that his client, An­der­son Strak­er, would con­fess on an FBI air­craft on his way to the US, af­ter stay­ing silent for 18 months while in a Trinidad jail. In his open­ing ad­dress to the Wash­ing­ton ju­ry, Kiersh said it was rather strange that Strak­er de­cid­ed to tell all dur­ing his ex­tra­di­tion flight. Strak­er was one of sev­en Trinida­di­ans found guilty on Ju­ly 31 for tak­ing US cit­i­zen, Bal­ram "Ba­lo" Ma­haraj, hostage. They will be sen­tenced on Feb­ru­ary 12, 2010. Kiersh stat­ed: "What you will hear ev­i­dence about is, that An­der­son Strak­er was ar­rest­ed in Jan­u­ary of 2006 and held in Trinida­di­an jails and pris­ons for 18 months. "And dur­ing that 18 months he kept be­ing vis­it­ed by Trinida­di­ans of­fi­cials, and An­der­son Strak­er kept say­ing, 'I am not go­ing to give a con­fes­sion about this crime. I am not go­ing to say that I've been in­volved in this crime. I am not go­ing to do it.'

"Eigh­teen months af­ter Mr Strak­er was ar­rest­ed, he was hand­ed over to the FBI and they flew him to the Unit­ed States for pur­pos­es of be­ing pros­e­cut­ed in this case." "Now, re­mem­ber, the pros­e­cu­tor said to you, well, you're go­ing to hear about con­fes­sions. Well, that's the con­fes­sion that they're talk­ing about. Af­ter 18 months he gets on the air­plane with the FBI, and when the plane ride is over, the FBI gen­er­ates a re­port and says, oh, he con­fessed. He gave us all these de­tails. Here it is. Here's our FBI-gen­er­at­ed re­port that says Mr Strak­er did this, did that, did X, did Y." Kiersh con­tin­ued: "Well, you're go­ing to see that re­port, and you're go­ing to hear tes­ti­mo­ny about the re­port. And what are you go­ing to learn about the re­port? It's not signed by Mr Strak­er. It's not au­dio­taped. It's not video­taped. There is no pro­ce­dure that was em­ployed that ei­ther record­ed that con­fes­sion or Mr Strak­er adopt­ed that con­fes­sion.

"And you will get to eval­u­ate, as part of your ser­vice as ju­rors, whether or not that's a cred­i­ble state­ment. Do you be­lieve that? Do you be­lieve that af­ter 18 months in his own coun­try say­ing, I'm not go­ing to talk, all of a sud­den he's on an air­plane, with­out coun­sel, with­out fam­i­ly, with­out any­body he knows who can as­sist him, gets off the plane and bin­go, they have what they say is a con­fes­sion that they don't both­er to record or to do any­thing to en­sure that some­body that's look­ing at it af­ter­wards says, oh, yeah, he adopt­ed it. Noth­ing like that." Kiersh said his client has no bur­den in this case. "That means he doesn't have to prove any­thing. And I'm not stand­ing up be­fore you to­day to prove his in­no­cence. It's the gov­ern­ment on­ly that bears the bur­den of proof in this case, as in any case of a court in the Unit­ed States, and the gov­ern­ment has to prove that bur­den to you by show­ing you or demon­strat­ing to you that Mr Strak­er is guilty of these charges be­yond a rea­son­able doubt."

He con­tin­ued: "I don't even have to stand up here and give an open­ing state­ment. I don't have to cross-ex­am­ine a sin­gle wit­ness, and I don't have to make a clos­ing ar­gu­ment. I have no oblig­a­tion at all as de­fence coun­sel. You just con­sid­er the ev­i­dence. "We're not here to present rea­sons why the gov­ern­ment did this or did that. It's up for you to con­sid­er the gov­ern­ment's ev­i­dence as you hear it and de­cide whether or not you have a doubt for which you can give a rea­son. "So that's what I want to talk to you about, what the ev­i­dence will not show. The pros­e­cu­tor stood up and said well, the ev­i­dence is go­ing to show this, the ev­i­dence is go­ing to show that, and the ev­i­dence is go­ing to show some­thing else. "What I'm here to say to you is what the ev­i­dence will not show. There will be not a sin­gle word from any wit­ness who's go­ing to say that An­der­son Strak­er took that man out of the bar that night. There will be not one wit­ness who says that.

There will be not one wit­ness who comes in here and says that An­der­son Strak­er had any role in the dis­mem­ber­ing of that man's body. "Not one sin­gle wit­ness who is go­ing to say that. The gov­ern­ment in its open­ing state­ment talked about these oth­er kid­nap­pings, talked about Mr Jagdeo, talked about the woman in the high-heeled shoes, talked about the oth­er one who they paid $300,000 for. That's the oth­er crimes ev­i­dence that Judge Bates talked to you about. "There is not one wit­ness who will come in­to this court­room and say that An­der­son Strak­er had a sin­gle thing to do with any of those oth­er charged crimes. "And re­mem­ber, the pros­e­cu­tor says, well, that's im­por­tant stuff be­cause that shows in­tent, and that shows they knew each oth­er, and that shows they trust­ed each oth­er. Not a sin­gle word of ev­i­dence about An­der­son Strak­er hav­ing any­thing to do with those oth­er kid­nap­pings."

Kiersh said there was no foren­sic ev­i­dence link­ing An­der­son Strak­er to the crime, none what­so­ev­er to tie his client to the crime. He added: "So that's again what you don't have. And the on­ly ev­i­dence that there will be are the co-op­er­a­tors. And you've al­ready heard about them. These are peo­ple who are the ones who com­mit­ted this ter­ri­ble crime. They're the peo­ple who planned this ter­ri­ble crime. They're the peo­ple who were in­volved in the dis­mem­ber­ment of Mr Ma­haraj. They're the peo­ple who got ar­rest­ed and said, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in jail with­out any pos­si­bil­i­ty of re­lease. "And you'll have their agree­ments. And their agree­ments re­quire that they walk in­to this court­room and tes­ti­fy and that they're go­ing to point, oh, yeah, An­der­son Strak­er did this, An­der­son Strak­er did that. And again, that's for you to con­sid­er, whether peo­ple who are ca­pa­ble of com­mit­ting this crime de­serve your be­lief."

TO­MOR­ROW: Gang leader presents his case