Sascha Wil­son

The State has 50 wit­ness state­ments and DNA ev­i­dence in their case against two men charged with the 2002 mur­ders of busi­ness mag­nate Ma­hase Ram­per­sad and his wife, Dar­ling. State at­tor­ney Trevor Jones dis­closed this yes­ter­day when Ram­per­sad's nephew, Kr­ish­na Ram­per­sad, 37, and his ex-wife Hil­da Don­na Bul­lock, 27, re-ap­peared be­fore act­ing Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan.

They are charged with mur­der­ing the Ram­per­sads on a date un­known be­tween Au­gust 3 and Au­gust 8, 2002 at La For­tune Road, Wood­land. The Ram­per­sads, founders of Mas­ka Ltd and M Ram­per­sad Au­to Sup­plies in San Fer­nan­do, were ab­duct­ed from the dri­ve­way of their home on Ben­net Dri­ve, Palmiste.

Four days lat­er, their bod­ies were found in the trunk of Ma­hase's Mer­cedes Benz, off a trace in Wood­land. They were shot in the back of their heads. Cpl Ter­ry Tam­bie laid the charges. Jones said the State would pro­ceed by way of pa­per com­mit­tal but none of the state­ments had been filed or sworn as yet.

At­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day, who, along with at­tor­ney El Farouk Ho­sein, is rep­re­sent­ing both ac­cused, said the State would have known that they were pro­ceed­ing via pa­per com­mit­tal: "For them to come now and say they have 50 wit­ness­es and no af­fi­davits is un­ten­able." He asked that the pros­e­cu­tion be put on a timetable to have the wit­ness state­ments sworn oth­er­wise he might have to wait two to three years for that process to be com­plet­ed.

Jones how­ev­er said by the next oc­ca­sion 30 state­ments should be sworn and filed and by the sec­ond ad­journ­ment the oth­ers should be com­plet­ed. The mag­is­trate said if that goes as planned then they could prob­a­bly start the pro­ceed­ings on the third hear­ing.

How­ev­er Jones not­ed that DNA ev­i­dence was sent abroad and they would have to get the in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing that. The mag­is­trate said that should not ham­per the start of the mat­ter in that ev­i­dence could be tak­en at a lat­er stage in the pro­ceed­ings. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Ju­ly 4.