Sascha Wil­son

The State is seek­ing to ten­der an unsworn state­ment from a wit­ness in the dou­ble mur­der of a promi­nent busi­ness cou­ple.State at­tor­ney Trevor Jones be­gan mak­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion be­fore deputy chief mag­is­trate Mark Welling­ton when pa­per com­mit­tal pro­ceed­ings in­to the 2002 mur­ders of mil­lion­aires Ma­hase and Dar­ling Ram­per­sad con­tin­ued yes­ter­day.Ma­hase's nephew Kr­ish­na Ram­per­sad, 39, is joint­ly charged with his for­mer wife Hil­da Don­na Bul­lock, 29, with the mur­ders.

Jones' ap­pli­ca­tion was made un­der 15C (1) (F) of the Ev­i­dence Act.He said the de­fence was giv­en full no­tice of the ap­pli­ca­tion. In mak­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion to ad­mit the unsworn state­ment of Davie Ho­sein, he said the court has the au­thor­i­ty to do so, but the pros­e­cu­tion must sat­is­fy two cri­te­ria:

�2 That the wit­ness is fear­ful

�2 That no rea­son­able steps can be tak­en to pro­tect the wit­ness

In sat­is­fy­ing the first cri­te­ri­on, Jones sought to ten­der state­ments of two wit­ness sup­port of­fi­cers.To sup­port the ap­pli­ca­tion, Jones al­so called po­lice com­plainant Cpl Ter­ry Tam­bie, who record­ed the state­ment of Ho­sein, to give ev­i­dence.In ad­di­tion to the ap­pli­ca­tion, the pros­e­cu­tion al­so ten­dered the post-mortem re­ports of Ma­hase and Dar­ling Ram­per­sad who were kid­napped in front of their Palmiste home on Au­gust 3, 2002.

The cou­ple's de­com­pos­ing bod­ies were found on Au­gust 7, 2002 in a cane­field at La For­tune, Wood­land. They had been shot in the back of the head and their skulls crushed.Ram­per­sad, a dairy farmer; and Bul­lock, of Ram­bert Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, were ar­rest­ed and charged in Feb­ru­ary 2012. The mat­ter is be­ing heard in the San Fer­nan­do First Court.