Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Mur­der ac­cused An­dre "Ba­goo" Seep­er­sad yes­ter­day claimed he had been as­sault­ed by the po­lice, when he ap­peared in court charged with killing 56-year-old po­lio vic­tim Don­awat­tie Jadoo­nanan. Seep­er­sad, 29, a labour­er, of Debe, stood ex­pres­sion­less as act­ing Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan read the mur­der charge to him in the San Fer­nan­do First Court.

Yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Lisa Singh, who ap­peared for Seep­er­sad, to­geth­er with Giselle Lan­deau, told the court up­on his ar­rest, her client com­plained of be­ing as­sault­ed by po­lice. She said Seep­er­sad asked to be tak­en for med­ical treat­ment. The charge laid against Seep­er­sad read that on Au­gust 5, 2012, at Ram­samooj Trace, Debe, he mur­dered Jadoo­nanan. The charge was laid in­dictably by PC Charles of the San?Fer­nan­do Homi­cide Bu­reau.

Ram­bachan asked court pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip for a progress re­port on the pros­e­cu­tion's file in the mat­ter. Phillip said: "The file is be­ing fi­nalised. Wit­ness state­ments are still be­ing tak­en be­fore be­ing sent to the DPP's (Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions) of­fice." Seep­er­sad al­so asked for le­gal aid, and Ram­bachan told po­lice to take him to sign the pa­per­work. He will reap­pear in court on Sep­tem­ber 12.

A sec­ond sus­pect in Jadoo­nanan's mur­der, a woman, was re­leased on Tues­day. Jadoo­nanan, of Ram­samooj Trace, was found dead by her neigh­bours with marks on her neck on Au­gust 5. She suf­fered from po­lio and lived an iso­lat­ed life. Some jew­el­ry was al­so miss­ing from her house. Vil­lagers found some of Jadoo­nanan's cloth­ing and jew­el­ry in an aban­doned track lead­ing from her house. An au­top­sy by pathol­o­gist Dr East­lyn Mc­Don­ald Bur­ris at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, con­clud­ed that she was stran­gled.