Sascha Wil­son

Three per­sons had their mat­ters dis­missed yes­ter­day af­ter a pas­tor and a fa­ther opt­ed to give no ev­i­dence in the case. Pas­tor Ash­meed Ali was robbed and beat­en by two cut­lass wield­ing men, while Fed­er­ick Nor­man was beat­en by his son. Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, both Ali and Nor­man took the wit­ness stand be­fore Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates' Court, stat­ing that they wished to give no fur­ther ev­i­dence in the mat­ters.

In an­swer to court pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip, they both said they were not threat­ened or promised any­thing, but were act­ing on their own free will. At­i­ba Je­re­mi­ah and Ju­nior Samuel were charged with rob­bing Ali of $1,000 cash and $500 cel­lu­lar phone in San Fer­nan­do on Jan­u­ary 15, 2010. They plead­ed not guilty.

Je­re­mi­ah walked out of the court a free man, but Samuel has four oth­er mat­ters pend­ing. He was placed on $20,000 bail to cov­er the charges with an al­ter­na­tive cash de­posit of $7,000. The mat­ter was ad­journed to March 16. In the oth­er in­ci­dent Nor­man said he had for­giv­en his son Je­re­my, 33, for beat­ing him in De­cem­ber 2011.

Je­re­my who has an­oth­er mat­ter pend­ing for com­mon as­sault against Mag­is­trate Rae Roopchan had been sent to St Ann's Hos­pi­tal for psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion. The mag­is­trate said the med­ical staff rec­om­mend­ed that he con­tin­ue treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do clin­ic. Ad­vis­ing Je­re­my to ap­ply for a le­gal aid at­tor­ney in the oth­er mat­ter, he said, "You are quite men­tal­ly chal­lenged in terms of aware­ness, you would need a lawyer." The mat­ter was ad­journed to March 8.