Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Princes Town po­lice have three days to en­sure pros­e­cu­tion files against ten men ac­cused of be­ing gang mem­bers are de­liv­ered to Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard for the ap­point­ment of a state at­tor­ney.Yes­ter­day, Princes Town Se­nior Mag­is­trate In­drani Ce­de­no is­sued the dead­line as she sig­nalled her in­ten­tion to be­gin pro­ceed­ings against Keron Mo­hammed, Ja­son Sim­mons, Gabriel Ben­jamin, Mar­cus Thomp­son, Sheik Elahie, Ake­mi Mark, Vikash Shar­ma, Mar­vin Pas­cal, Re­ba Ro­driguez and Make­si Mo­hammed, all of whom face charges un­der the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion.This comes one day af­ter 21 res­i­dents of Nel­son Street, Port of Spain, were set free.On Mon­day, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain First Court be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Ceasar where he in­di­cat­ed that the State was un­able to pro­ceed with the mat­ters against the men.He said there was "in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence" to sus­tain the charges.Sgt Don Ga­jad­har, who to­geth­er with PCs Manohar, Bac­cus, Dook­ie, Mor­ris and Wpc Am­bral­ly laid the charges, gave the un­der­tak­ing that the files would be de­liv­ered to the As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (South) and then the DPP be­fore the mat­ter re­sumes on Fri­day.Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Fe­lix Fer­gu­son had in­di­cat­ed that the files in the mat­ter were sent to ASP Zamsheed Mo­hammed on Mon­day, to be sent to the DPP's of­fice.Ce­de­no asked: "Why so late?"Fer­gu­son said: "The files had to be com­piled and due to the state of emer­gency, there was some de­lay."