Fran­cis Joseph

Two po­lice­men yes­ter­day blocked the ex­e­cu­tion of mur­der charges against them. PC Gary Moore and PC Joel Si­fontes went be­fore Jus­tice Joan Charles in the Port-of-Spain High Court yes­ter­day, seek­ing leave to file for ju­di­cial re­view, and to stay the ex­e­cu­tion of the war­rants for their ar­rests for mur­der. On Tues­day, Coro­ner Nali­ni Singh or­dered that the two po­lice­men be charged with mur­der. They were the sub­jects of an in­quest in­to the death of Dami­an An­toine, which oc­curred on Feb­ru­ary 5, 2004, on Morne Co­co Road, Mar­aval. But be­fore in­ves­ti­ga­tors could ex­e­cute the war­rants, at­tor­neys Is­rael Khan, SC, and Ul­ric Sker­ritt went be­fore the High Court to block them. The po­lice­men con­tend that the de­ci­sion of the coro­ner to is­sue a war­rant for their ar­rests was con­trary to law, and in con­flict with the pol­i­cy of the Coro­ner's Act.

They al­so sub­mit­ted that the de­ci­sion of the coro­ner was in ex­cess of her ju­ris­dic­tion when she pro­ceed­ed to make a find­ing against them with­out sub­ject­ing peo­ple, who had giv­en state­ments, to ex­am­i­na­tion in open court. Moore and Si­fontes ar­gued that the de­ci­sion of the coro­ner to is­sue war­rants for their ar­rests was an abuse of process, and was ir­ra­tional and un­rea­son­able. They want an or­der of man­damus to di­rect the coro­ner, ei­ther to re­hear and de­ter­mine the in­quest, or to have it trans­ferred to an­oth­er coro­ner for hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion. The court or­dered that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al be served with a copy of the pro­ceed­ings by Feb­ru­ary 10, and that the mat­ter be heard again on Feb­ru­ary 23.

In her rul­ing last Tues­day, Singh said hav­ing heard the oral ev­i­dence in court, and hav­ing read the state­ments sub­mit­ted in the in­quest, she found that a case had been made out in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 28 of the Coro­ner's Act. She said there were two ver­sions of what hap­pened on the night of Feb­ru­ary 5, 2004. She point­ed out that the po­lice con­tend­ed that An­toine was shot in self-de­fence. But the civil­ian wit­ness­es, ac­cord­ing to Singh, said oth­er­wise. They sub­mit­ted that An­toine, 21, was placed on the ground with oth­er peo­ple and shot sev­er­al times in the leg and chest. An­toine, who lived at Le Plat­te Vil­lage, Mar­aval, died while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. An­oth­er man who was shot in the same in­ci­dent, sur­vived.

At the time of the in­ci­dent, po­lice said, An­toine was walk­ing along Morne Co­co Road, Mar­aval, when they called up­on him to stop. They con­tend­ed that An­toine was want­ed for sev­er­al rob­beries. They said that An­toine pulled out a gun and fired at them. The po­lice said they re­turned fire and An­toine and the oth­er man were shot. But eye­wit­ness­es said An­toine was sit­ting on a wall chat­ting with a friend when they heard sev­er­al gun­shots. Min­utes lat­er, they saw An­toine bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds.