In­dar­jit Seu­raj

It was an un­fa­mil­iar po­si­tion yes­ter­day for Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, when he was sum­moned to tes­ti­fy in the case of a woman charged with de­fraud­ing the hus­band of mur­dered busi­ness­woman Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man. In a tes­ti­mo­ny, last­ing about 15 min­utes, be­fore Mag­is­trate Melville Daniel in the Port-of-Spain First Court, Khan gave oral ev­i­dence as ac­cused Al­isha Chunu watched from the pris­on­ers' bench. His at­tor­ney Daniel Khan, who is al­so his son, was present to watch over his in­ter­est as he was ques­tioned by spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor Evans Welch.

Khan was named on the charge laid against Chunu, a for­mer mur­der ac­cused charged with per­pe­trat­ing the fraud. Chunu, 35, of Rich­plain Road, Diego Mar­tin, is al­leged to have de­fraud­ed Ren­nie Cool­man, hus­band of Naipaul-Cool­man, of $165,000, and al­so is charged with so­lic­it­ing a to­tal of $175,000 for the for­bear­ance of charges against Cool­man for his wife's kid­nap­ping and mur­der. The charges al­lege that Chunu pre­tend­ed to be a state at­tor­ney and so­licit­ed and re­ceived mon­ey from Cool­man in for­bear­ance of crim­i­nal charges in his wife's dis­ap­pear­ance. She is charged with nine fraud of­fences, orig­i­nat­ing from the kid­nap­ping of Naipaul-Cool­man on De­cem­ber 19, 2006. Naipaul-Cool­man, CEO of Xtra Foods Ltd, was kid­napped out­side her home in Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, and has been miss­ing since. She has since been de­clared dead by Homi­cide de­tec­tives. Sun­day would mark four years since she dis­ap­peared.

Khan was sum­moned to tes­ti­fy in the mat­ter af­ter his name was men­tioned in one of the charges. It states: "On April 4 at Grand Bazaar, with in­tent to de­fraud (Al­isha Chunu) did fraud­u­lent­ly ob­tain $25,000 from Ren­nie Cool­man by false­ly pre­tend­ing she was an at­tor­ney em­ployed at the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and that she had been as­signed by the DPP a file in re­la­tion to the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the said Ren­nie Cool­man's in­volve­ment in the al­leged kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man, and that that file had been sent to Is­rael Khan, SC, to ad­vise the DPP as to whether there was ev­i­dence to charge the said Cool­man for the al­leged mur­der of the said Naipaul-Cool­man and that the said $25,000 was to pay Khan, SC, as an in­duce­ment to him to ad­vise the DPP there was no ev­i­dence to charge the said Cool­man."

The DPP dur­ing the time the charges were laid was Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son. He is now a High Court judge and is al­so set to tes­ti­fy in the in­quiry. Khan, an at­tor­ney for 31 years, had rep­re­sent­ed Chunu in 2004 in the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­to the mur­der of Min­istry of Ad­min­is­tra­tion em­ploy­ee Menon Hin­goo. Fraud Squad De­tec­tive In­sp Mar­tin Pha­goo, who charged the ac­cused with the of­fences, al­so tes­ti­fied yes­ter­day. The hear­ing was ad­journed to De­cem­ber 22.