Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For the third con­sec­u­tive time the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to mur­der charges against six po­lice of­fi­cers failed to start. The six of­fi­cers, Cpl Khem­raj Sa­hadeo, Con­sta­bles Re­nal­do Re­viero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Ju­man and An­to­nio Ra­madin are charged with the mur­ders of Abi­gail John­son, Al­lana Dun­can and Ker­ron "Fin­gers" Ec­cles.

On Mon­day, Mag­is­trate De­bra Quin­tyne, pre­sid­ing in the Princes Town court, de­clined to start the mat­ter since she will be pro­ceed­ing on leave at the end of Ju­ly. Last month, the mat­ter was set to be­gin but Quin­tyne called in sick, forc­ing an ad­journ­ment. It was af­ter that hear­ing that a po­lice con­sta­ble, Nicole Clement, who was joint­ly charged with the mur­ders, turned state wit­ness. The charges against her were dropped.

She was charged with per­vert­ing the course of jus­tice. She was grant­ed im­mu­ni­ty in ex­change for her tes­ti­mo­ny. When the mat­ter was called on Mon­day, the ac­cused po­lice of­fi­cers asked for the mat­ter to be start­ed. They said they would con­sent to a long ad­journ­ment un­til Quin­tyne re­turns in mid-Sep­tem­ber.

How­ev­er, the mag­is­trate re­fused their ap­pli­ca­tion. "That may be pru­dent to them but it is not go­ing to hap­pen," she said. John­son, Dun­can and Ec­cles were shot dead last year in Bar­rack­pore, dur­ing an al­leged shoot-out with po­lice of­fi­cers on Ju­ly 22, 2011. At Mon­day's hear­ing, Quin­tyne in­formed de­fence lawyers in the case that she would not start the mat­ter.

Gas­pard said he had 25 wit­ness­es ready to tes­ti­fy. Quin­tyne ex­plained that in three weeks' time she would be on leave un­til Sep­tem­ber and she had a num­ber of mur­der in­quiries she want­ed to "fo­cus" on be­fore start­ing the in­quiry against the of­fi­cers. The mat­ter has been ad­journed to Ju­ly 30.