Derek Achong

Lengthy le­gal ar­gu­ments over a se­ries of con­tro­ver­sial ques­tions di­rect­ed at the wid­ow­er of busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man have slowed the tri­al of a dozen men ac­cused of mur­der­ing her. Ren­nie Cool­man, a cam­pus man­ag­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of T&T (UTT), was due to re­turn to the Port-of-Spain Third Crim­i­nal Court yes­ter­day to con­tin­ue his tes­ti­mo­ny af­ter his cross-ex­am­i­na­tion last Thurs­day was cut short by ob­jec­tions from pros­e­cu­tors.How­ev­er, when the case was called Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip told the 12-mem­ber ju­ry the at­tor­neys had not com­plet­ed their sub­mis­sions on the is­sues raised dur­ing Cool­man's first ap­pear­ance.

He es­ti­mat­ed that the sub­mis­sions would be com­plet­ed with­in two days and told ju­rors to re­turn to court on Thurs­day. The con­tro­ver­sial line of ques­tion­ing was raised by de­fence at­tor­ney Kwe­si Bekoe, who had asked Cool­man about an in­ci­dent in which mon­ey was ex­tort­ed from Cool­man by some­one pur­port­ing to be a state at­tor­ney so that Cool­man would not be pros­e­cut­ed in the case.Be­fore be­ing in­ter­rupt­ed by the ob­jec­tion, Bekoe had asked Cool­man about his in­volve­ment in his wife's fam­i­ly busi­ness. Cool­man said he was not in­volved and was not privy to the fi­nan­cial stand­ing of the su­per­mar­ket chain.

His tes­ti­mo­ny dealt main­ly with what he saw when his wife was kid­napped on De­cem­ber 19, 2006, as well as his knowl­edge of sev­er­al ran­som calls made to his wife's younger broth­er, Anand, in the weeks fol­low­ing her kid­nap­ping.He is the sixth wit­ness to be called by state pros­e­cu­tors since the high-pro­file tri­al be­gan late last month.His step­daugh­ter Risha Ali and the fam­i­ly's live-in house­keep­er Rasheedan Ya­coob, who were both home at the time and wit­nessed the kid­nap­ping, al­so tes­ti­fied last week.Of the 65 po­lice of­fi­cers who are wit­ness­es in the case, three al­ready have giv­en ev­i­dence.

The dozen men be­fore the ju­ry and Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip are: Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, Sher­von "Buffy" Pe­ters, Kei­da Gar­cia, broth­ers Mar­lon and Earl Trim­ming­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­to­nio Charles, Joel Fras­er, Lyn­don James, De­von Pe­ters, An­tho­ny Dwayne Gloster and Jamille Gar­cia. A 13th man, Raphael Williams, was charged but died in prison in 2011.Their le­gal team in­cludes Ul­ric Sker­ritt, Joseph Pan­tor, Sel­wyn Mo­hammed, Lennox Sankers­ingh, Ian Brooks, Wayne Sturge, Mario Mer­ritt, Richard Valere, Kwe­si Bekoe, Col­in Selvon, Vince Charles, Chris­t­ian Chan­dler, Deli­cia Hel­wig, Alex­ia Romero, Sta­cy Ben­jamin-Roach and Lana Lack­han.The pros­e­cu­tion team is be­ing led by three Se­nior Coun­sel – Is­rael Khan, Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Dana See­ta­hal – who are be­ing in­struct­ed by state pros­e­cu­tors Joy Balka­ran and Kel­ly Thomp­son.