Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Court of Ap­peal has been asked to con­sid­er whether two broth­ers from east Trinidad should face a re­tri­al for mur­der­ing a man and at­tempt­ing to mur­der his broth­er and cousin af­ter forc­ing them to help process their mar­i­jua­na har­vest, over a decade ago. 

The is­sue arose yes­ter­day as the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) con­ced­ed that a judge made an er­ror when he con­vict­ed John and Vic­tor Flo­res at the end of their ju­ry-less tri­al in 2022. 

Pre­sent­ing sub­mis­sions be­fore Ap­pel­late Judges Maria Wil­son, Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh, and Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son, yes­ter­day morn­ing, Deputy DPP Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal rec­om­mend­ed a re­tri­al for the sib­lings as she not­ed that their con­vic­tions were un­safe based on the er­ror. 

She said, “The na­ture of the er­ror and the ef­fect on the even­tu­al de­ci­sion is too great.” 

The sib­lings were con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing Seecha­ran Sankar and at­tempt­ing to mur­der Sankar’s broth­er Dood­nath al­so known as Anil, and their cousin Ro­han “John­ny” Ram­nar­ine on May 24, 2010.

They were sen­tenced to hang for Sankar’s mur­der and still giv­en 28-year sen­tences for at­tempt­ed mur­der and eight years for arms and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion.

Dur­ing the tri­al, Dood­nath and Ram­nar­ine tes­ti­fied that they and Sankar left their home at Charu­ma Vil­lage in Biche to har­vest green ba­nanas from Ram­nar­ine’s gar­den which was lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance away.

Dood­nath 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. 

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

Dood­nath claimed that the broth­ers forced them to trim the dried mar­i­jua­na flow­ers for al­most two hours be­fore John used Ram­ma­rine’s cell­phone to make a call. 

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

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

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.

Dood­nath 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 they con­tact­ed their rel­a­tives and the po­lice. 

The Flo­res broth­ers were de­tained days af­ter the in­ci­dent. One was held in a taxi trav­el­ling to Ma­yaro and a shot­gun, which was lat­er iden­ti­fied as the mur­der weapon through bal­lis­tic test­ing, was found in his pos­ses­sion.

The duo de­nied any wrong­do­ing as they pre­sent­ed al­i­bis. John claimed that he went to a rel­a­tive’s home in Mara­cas, St Joseph, to bor­row mon­ey, while Vic­tor claimed that he was cut­ting grass at an­oth­er rel­a­tive’s prop­er­ty in Ma­yaro. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas dis­re­gard­ed an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade, in which Vic­tor was al­leged­ly point­ed out, be­cause it was un­fair. 

Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas re­ject­ed the al­i­bis as he ac­cept­ed the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion ev­i­dence of the sur­viv­ing rel­a­tives. 

In con­ced­ing the ap­peal, yes­ter­day, Dougdeen-Jaglal claimed that the judge could have on­ly con­sid­ered the duo’s failed al­i­bis in de­ter­min­ing their guilt if there was ev­i­dence that such was “con­coct­ed”. 

She not­ed that he was en­ti­tled to dis­be­lieve the al­i­bis but there was no proof of wil­ful fab­ri­ca­tion. 

“There must be con­coc­tion and not mere­ly dis­be­lief,” she said. 

In rec­om­mend­ing the re­tri­al, she said that it was re­quired in the in­ter­est of jus­tice and could be quick­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed. 

Pub­lic de­fend­ers Deli­cia Hel­wig-Robert­son and Shane Pa­tience chal­lenged the po­si­tion as they point­ed out that sev­er­al oth­er for­mer mur­der ac­cused, who were grant­ed re­tri­als in 2021 and 2022, were still await­ing tri­al. 

“We are not ac­cept­ing that this is the state that the sys­tem is in,” Pa­tience said. 

The ap­peal pan­el di­rect­ed the par­ties to file fur­ther sub­mis­sions on the is­sue and promised to give its de­ci­sion on a date to be fixed.