Derek Achong

Ac­cused gang leader Ra­jaee Ali and 11 mem­bers of his or­gan­i­sa­tion ac­cused of as­sas­si­nat­ing Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal have suc­ceed­ed in their bid to have Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar re­cuse her­self from their pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar agreed to step down from the high pro­file case yes­ter­day af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, did not op­pose the ap­pli­ca­tion from the ac­cused men, who claimed that she may ap­pear to be bi­ased in hear­ing their case.

Dur­ing the hear­ing in the Port-of-Spain Eight Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day morn­ing, Gas­pard said he was "mind­ful of the need to pro­tect the in­tegri­ty of the tri­al process."

In their ap­pli­ca­tion, the ac­cused ques­tioned Ay­ers-Cae­sar's im­par­tial­i­ty as they claimed some of the of­fi­cers of the Crim­i­nal Gang and In­tel­li­gence Unit (CGIU) who in­ves­ti­gat­ed See­ta­hal's mur­der were briefly as­signed to her se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.

Ay­ers-Cae­sar had pre­vi­ous­ly agreed to re­cuse her­self from Ali's sep­a­rate case for con­spir­ing to mur­der ra­dio an­nounc­er Ke­vaughn "Lur­bz" Sa­vory in late 2014 on the same ground.

Se­cu­ri­ty in and around the St Vin­cent Street cour­t­house was no­tably in­creased yes­ter­day with po­lice of­fi­cers, wear­ing bul­let proof vests and car­ry­ing as­sault ri­fles, at strate­gic lo­ca­tions and traf­fic be­ing di­vert­ed from in front of the court, mea­sures which have be­come the norm on each hear­ing of the case.

On­ly one fam­i­ly mem­ber for each of the ac­cused men was al­lowed in the court­room for the hear­ing.

Ali, his broth­ers, Ish­mael and Hamid Ali; De­vaughn Cum­mings, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Earl Richards, Stephan Cum­mings, Kevin Parkin­son, Le­ston Gon­za­les; Ro­get Bouch­er and Gareth Wise­man are ac­cused of mur­der­ing See­ta­hal on May 4, 2014. See­ta­hal was dri­ving alone Hamil­ton Hold­er Street in Wood­brook when she was am­bushed and shot dead in her SUV.

Ali, Sta­cy Grif­fith, De­on Pe­ters and David Ec­tor are on charges un­der the An­ti-Gang Act for as­sist­ing the group in the mur­der but are not charged with the cap­i­tal of­fence.The ac­cused men will reap­pear in court on Jan­u­ary 28.