DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Two Chi­nese busi­ness­women have been freed of charges for open­ing their su­per­mar­ket dur­ing a cur­few for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in 2021 due to de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing their case.

Mag­is­trate De­bra Quin­tyne dis­missed the charges against Shumin Zhou and Xaio Zheng as po­lice pros­e­cu­tors were not pre­pared to start their case, which was set for tri­al yes­ter­day.

The duo was charged un­der Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions for the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic af­ter po­lice al­leged­ly found Hap­pi­ness Su­per­mar­ket in Barataria open on June 3, 2021.

The reg­u­la­tions on­ly per­mit­ted cer­tain busi­ness­es and not su­per­mar­kets to open on the In­di­an Ar­rival Day (May 31) and Cor­pus Christi pub­lic hol­i­days that year. The max­i­mum penal­ty for the of­fence was a $250,000 fine and im­pris­on­ment for six months.

When the case was called yes­ter­day, po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Lloyd in­di­cat­ed that the tri­al could not go ahead as planned, as act­ing Sgt Ramkissoon, who charged the duo, ap­peared in court vir­tu­al­ly.

He claimed that Sgt Ramkissoon was not aware that the case was set for tri­al as he had been on ex­tend­ed leave since late last year. At­tor­ney Vashisht Seep­er­sad, who rep­re­sent­ed the duo, said that an ad­journ­ment was not jus­ti­fied. “This is high­ly prej­u­di­cial that the pros­e­cu­tion does not have a rea­son­able ex­cuse,” Seep­er­sad said.

Seep­er­sad not­ed that af­ter be­ing charged, his clients were grant­ed bail and al­lowed to trav­el abroad. He not­ed that they were present for all pre­vi­ous hear­ings and re­turned from Chi­na via Cana­da ear­li­er this week to at­tend the tri­al.

Mag­is­trate Quin­tyne ques­tioned Sgt Ramkissoon over not be­ing aware of the tri­al date.

Ramkissoon said that he was still mourn­ing the loss of his daugh­ter, who died in Au­gust last year. “I am get­ting my­self back to­geth­er. I went on leave be­cause of that,” Ramkissoon said.

Ques­tion­ing why the oth­er wit­ness­es were not present, Mag­is­trate Quin­tyne not­ed that it would be un­rea­son­able to post­pone the tri­al and force them to re­turn to court in a few months. “I have heard a myr­i­ad of ex­cus­es, and none of those ex­cus­es lie at the feet of the de­fence,” she said.

“I think it would be un­fair to ask the de­fen­dants to make their way halfway around the world and then re­turn to T&T for a tri­al,” she added.