Derek Achong

Two broth­ers, ac­cused of mur­der­ing a man and at­tempt­ing to mur­der his broth­er and cousin af­ter forc­ing them to help process their mar­i­jua­na har­vest, have gone on tri­al. 

Tes­ti­fy­ing in David and Vic­tor Flo­res’ vir­tu­al judge-alone tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas, yes­ter­day, Dood­nath “Anil” Sankar re­count­ed the trau­mat­ic event in which his broth­er Seecha­ran was killed and he and his cousin John­ny Ram­nar­ine bare­ly sur­vived. 

Sankar claimed that on May 24, 2010, he, Seecha­ran and Ram­nar­ine left their home at Charu­ma Vil­lage in Biche to har­vest green figs from Ram­nar­ine’s gar­den which was lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance away. 

Sankar claimed that they were in the process of har­vest­ing the pro­duce when they were con­front­ed by the Flo­res broth­ers, who were armed with shot­guns. 

He claimed that the broth­ers in­struct­ed them to drop their cut­lass­es and told them that they had come to kill Ram­nar­ine to send a mes­sage to his (Ram­nar­ine) broth­er, who was in prison at the time. 

“They said they had some work for we to do be­fore they kill we,” Sankar said.

He claimed that the broth­ers then forced them to hike through a forest­ed area and three mar­i­jua­na fields be­fore they ar­rived at a camp­site at the peak of a small moun­tain.  

Sankar claimed that the broth­ers forced them to trim the dried mar­i­jua­na flow­ers for al­most two hours be­fore the old­er one, who he knew from the vil­lage, used Ram­ma­rine’s cell­phone to make a call. 

He claimed that the phone was on loud­speak­er and he recog­nised the voice on the oth­er end as an­oth­er vil­lager iden­ti­fied as Al­ton, who he al­so knew. 

He said that the broth­ers told the man that they had ab­duct­ed Ram­nar­ine and his two cousins, who hap­pened to be with him at the time.

Sankar said that he and his rel­a­tives re­peat­ed­ly plead­ed for their lives to be spared but were ig­nored by the man on the phone, who al­leged­ly said he and his broth­er were in “the right place at the wrong time.”

“Al­ton up and say, oh God buss they skull too. Kill three of them,” Sankar said. 

He claimed af­ter the phone call, the old­er Flo­res broth­er re­moved the SIM card and de­stroyed it. 

He then point­ed the gun at Ram­nar­ine and shot him once in his chest be­fore turn­ing the bar­rel to Sankar’s broth­er and shoot­ing him once in his back. 

The gun­man’s broth­er then shot in Sankar’s di­rec­tion but he was grazed at the side of his head. 

“I shift to my right and I felt the side of my head start­ed to burn,” Sankar said. 

He claimed that he jumped from the cliff in a bid to es­cape the men. 

He claimed that when he land­ed at the bot­tom of the cliff, he saw Ram­nar­ine, who ap­peared to have al­so jumped af­ter be­ing shot.

“I looked in front of me and I saw John­ny. I say I see you get a good shot and they kill Sweet­ie (Seecha­ran),” Sankar said.

Sankar claimed that he as­sist­ed Ram­nar­ine in walk­ing as he was bleed­ing from his mouth and chest and they made their way to a riv­er. 

The duo then fol­lowed the riv­er’s path un­til they made their way back to the vil­lage, where he con­tact­ed his rel­a­tives and the po­lice. 

Af­ter re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment, Sankar claimed that he led his rel­a­tives back to the camp­site where they found his broth­er’s body.

He claimed that based on in­struc­tions from the po­lice, they cov­ered the body with a bag and left it at the lo­ca­tion. 

Lat­er that day, he led po­lice of­fi­cers back to the lo­ca­tion to re­cov­er the body. 

Sankar claimed that sev­er­al weeks lat­er, he was in­vit­ed by the po­lice to at­tend two iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades in which he point­ed out the Flo­res broth­ers as the two men who at­tacked them. 

While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by de­fence at­tor­ney Ramesh Deena, Sankar could not ex­plain the rea­son for mi­nor in­con­sis­ten­cies in his ev­i­dence in court and in his ini­tial state­ments to po­lice. 

Sankar ad­mit­ted that he was al­so asked about the in­con­sis­ten­cies while tes­ti­fy­ing in the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the case at the Rio Claro Mag­is­trates’ Court and main­tained that his tes­ti­mo­ny in court then and now was the truth of what tran­spired. 

The Flo­res broth­ers are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Rekha Ramjit, while Maria Lyons is pros­e­cut­ing.

The tri­al re­sumes to­day with the con­tin­u­a­tion of Sankar’s cross-ex­am­i­na­tion. 

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