For the sec­ond time this week, the tri­al of 12 men ac­cused of mur­der­ing cen­tral busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man was de­layed be­cause of lengthy le­gal ar­gu­ments.Her wid­ow­er, Ren­nie Cool­man, was present at the Port-of-Spain High Court for yes­ter­day's hear­ing though he spent most of the morn­ing sit­ting out­side the court­room as he wait­ed for de­fence at­tor­neys to con­tin­ue cross-ex­am­in­ing him.How­ev­er, by mid­day Cool­man and the 12-mem­ber ju­ry and six al­ter­nates hear­ing the tri­al, were in­formed they had to re­turn to court this morn­ing as lawyers had just com­plet­ed their le­gal sub­mis­sions over a se­ries of con­tro­ver­sial ques­tions which they were seek­ing to ask Cool­man.

Be­fore ad­journ­ing the case, High Court judge Mal­colm Holdip in­formed Cool­man and the ju­rors he would give his rul­ing on the is­sue dur­ing the next hear­ing, af­ter which the de­fence at­tor­neys would be al­lowed to re­sume ques­tion­ing Cool­man.He be­gan his tes­ti­mo­ny in the high pro­file tri­al last week but it was cut short af­ter pros­e­cu­tors ob­ject­ed when de­fence lawyer Kwe­si Bekoe be­gan ask­ing him about an in­ci­dent in which he was ex­tort­ed by a woman, pre­tend­ing to be a State at­tor­ney, who re­quest­ed mon­ey for him to avoid be­ing pros­e­cut­ed in re­la­tion to his wife's kid­nap­ping and mur­der.Pros­e­cu­tors and de­fence at­tor­neys im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan le­gal sub­mis­sion on the ob­jec­tion dur­ing that hear­ing and were sched­uled to fin­ish on Mon­day. How­ev­er, on the date of the dead­line, the mat­ter had to be ad­journed as they had not yet been com­plet­ed.

Cool­man is the sixth wit­ness to be called by pros­e­cu­tors since the tri­al be­gan in late March.His step­daugh­ter, Risha Ali, and for­mer live-in house­keep­er Rasheedan Ya­coob, who were al­so at the fam­i­ly's Lange Park, home on De­cem­ber 19, 2006 when Naipaul-Cool­man was kid­napped al­so have giv­en ev­i­dence.The oth­er wit­ness­es are po­lice pho­tog­ra­ph­er PC Bren­ton Mack who took pic­tures of the crime scene and two po­lice of­fi­cers as­signed to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, who re­spond­ed to the re­port of the busi­ness­woman's kid­nap­ping.

Who's in court

The dozen men be­fore the ju­ry and Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip are: Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, twin broth­ers Sher­von and De­von Pe­ters, sib­lings Kei­da and Jamille Gar­cia and their old­er broth­er An­tho­ny Dwayne Gloster, broth­ers Mar­lon and Earl Trim­ming­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­to­nio Charles, Joel Fras­er and Lyn­don James. A 13th man, Raphael Williams, was charged with the crime but died in prison in 2011 of com­pli­ca­tions from sick­le-cell anaemia.

Le­gal team

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 and Alex­ia Romero.The pros­e­cu­tion team in­cludes Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Dana See­ta­hal, who are be­ing as­sist­ed by se­nior state pros­e­cu­tors Joy Balka­ran and Kel­ly Thomp­son.