In­dar­jit Seu­raj

Nine days af­ter off-du­ty po­lice­man PC Ja­son Thomas was killed while ply­ing his car for hire, two men and a teenage boy yes­ter­day stood be­fore a Tu­na­puna mag­is­trate, charged with the mur­der. Meshek Job, 20, Ta­fari George, 26, a land­scap­er, and a 16-year-old school drop out, all of Mal­oney Gar­dens, re­mained silent as the charge was read to them. Thomas was shot and killed at the in­ter­sec­tion of the Churchill-Roo­sevelt and Uri­ah But­ler High­ways last week Mon­day. Yes­ter­day, sur­round­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers from the Court and Process Branch, the ac­cused ap­peared be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Nanette Forde-John in the First Court.

Job, who cel­e­brat­ed his 20th birth­day while in po­lice cus­tody on Sun­day, was slapped with ad­di­tion­al charges of un­law­ful pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion. Rel­a­tives of the ac­cused lis­tened and watched on from the court gallery as the charges were read. Al­so watch­ing from the pub­lic gallery were Thomas' moth­er, Grace Thomas, and un­cle, who went to the cour­t­house to get a glimpse of the peo­ple ac­cused of killing her son. In­ter­viewed briefly af­ter­wards, Grace said while she was hap­py the law was tak­ing its course, she left her son's killing to God. "It's all up to the Lord," she said. Thomas (Ja­son), 37, a fa­ther of two of Cashew Gar­dens, Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas, who was as­signed to the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice, was shot and killed when he tried to es­cape gun­men who car­jacked him while he was ply­ing the Ch­agua­nas/Curepe route on Au­gust 23.

At yes­ter­day's hear­ing, the ac­cused were rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Richard Clarke-Wills who asked that the charges against his clients to be dealt with "ex­pe­di­tious­ly." In re­sponse, the mag­is­trate said the ac­cused would be sub­ject to due process of law. "Mr Clarke-Wills, I'm afraid you'll have to wait your turn," Forde-John said. She then ad­journed the mat­ter to next week Wednes­day. Ear­li­er, the ac­cused were es­cort­ed from the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion, where they had been de­tained for the past nine days. They were placed on iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades over the week­end and charged late Mon­day. Homi­cide Bu­reau de­tec­tive WPC Jer­ma­line Mitchell-Gosyne in­ves­ti­gat­ed and charged the ac­cused.