Sascha Wil­son

A man who was ac­cused of break­ing in­to a mosque was freed on a sac­ri­lege charge yes­ter­day.Ja­son Black­burn, 35, who has ad­dress­es in Pleas­antville and Point Fortin, walked free af­ter a ju­ry in the San Fer­nan­do Third As­sizes found him not guilty af­ter de­lib­er­at­ing for al­most two hours.The State's on­ly piece of ev­i­dence against Black­burn was an oral state­ment he al­leged­ly made to the po­lice.

The pros­e­cu­tion called five wit­ness­es dur­ing the tri­al, which was heard be­fore Jus­tice Maria Wil­son.Po­lice com­plainant PC Bar­rie Ram­char­ran said on March 3, 2006 Ab­dool Samadh, the care­tak­er of the Ra­matal­ly Park As­ja Ma­jid in Fyz­abad, re­port­ed a break-in and theft at the mosque.

Samadh said he locked up the mosque af­ter prayers on Feb­ru­ary 24 but when he re­turned lat­er that day he dis­cov­ered a pad­lock on the bur­glarproof gate lead­ing to the store­room was miss­ing. When he went in­side, he found a mi­cro­phone, a trans­mit­ter and $300 in cash miss­ing.When Ram­char­ran went to the mosque, he said he found the ac­cused in the bath­room and took him to the po­lice sta­tion.

At the po­lice sta­tion, Ram­char­ran said, Black­burn told him: "Boss, I re­al sick and I can't work and I had to get mon­ey to pay the court. Give me a lit­tle chance." Black­burn did not give ev­i­dence or call wit­ness­es but his de­fence, through his at­tor­neys Maris­sa Bubb and Saira Lakhan-Rooplal, was that he told the po­lice he knew noth­ing about the crime.