Derek Achong

With less than nine days to go be­fore Car­ni­val, reign­ing So­ca Monarch and Road March king Machel Mon­tano made an ap­pear­ance in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day. Mon­tano is be­fore Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor charged with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and as­sault aris­ing out of an in­ci­dent out­side the Zen Night Club in Port-of-Spain in April 2007. He is joint­ly charged with so­ca stars Rod­ney "Ben­jai" Le Blanc and Joel "Zan" Feveck, with mu­sic pro­duc­er Ker­nel Roberts al­so fac­ing charges.

At yes­ter­day's hear­ing, Ba­boolal-Gafoor gave a rul­ing on a pre­lim­i­nary is­sue in the case, al­low­ing State pros­e­cu­tor George Bus­by to ad­dress her on Le Blanc and Feveck dur­ing his clos­ing sub­mis­sion. At an ear­li­er hear­ing, at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Le Blanc and Feveck had ob­ject­ed to Bus­by in­clud­ing their clients in his clos­ing sub­mis­sions. Ba­boolal-Gafoor ad­journed the mat­ter to March 19.