Three men have been freed of murdering a 22-year-old Diego Martin resident over two decades ago, with one of them criticising the DPP’s office for not discontinuing the case.
McDonald Bailey, 52, Keyon “Ratti” Anthony, 49, and 43-year-old Gareth “Reddo” Wiseman were freed yesterday, after High Court Judge Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle upheld a no-case submission over there being insufficient evidence linking them to the crime.
The legal victory was bittersweet for Wiseman, as unlike his former co-accused, he was not able to walk out of the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain to be reunited with relatives, as he is among a group of men awaiting trial for murdering former independent senator Dana Seetahal, SC.
The trio was accused of murdering Meshach Samuel on December 10, 2003.
Samuel was on his way to a parlour in River Estate, Diego Martin, when he was ambushed by three gunmen who shot him several times before running away.
A resident took him to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital but he died while being treated. The trio first went on trial before current Appellate Judge Mark Mohammed in 2008 but a retrial was ordered as the jury could not decide on a unanimous verdict for them.
In 2022, Anthony was among the first to be granted bail for murder based on a landmark Privy Council ruling on the ability of judges to consider such.
In upholding the no-case submission, Justice Busby-Earle-Caddle ruled that there was no evidence presented in the trial linking them to the crime. Justice Busby-Earle-Caddle noted that although Samuel’s sister Janelle Samuel initially claimed that she saw the men, who she identified by their aliases, near where her brother was shot and running from the scene after the shooting, she (Samuel) claimed that she did not see her brother’s attackers in court when she testified in the trial.
She also noted that the resident who took Samuel to the hospital misidentified Wiseman as Bailey during the trial. She said that although both witnesses identified the men during a confrontation exercise with the police and during the preliminary inquiry of the case, they were required to confirm their identification at trial.
She said that misidentification was tantamount to there being no valid identification of the men.
She referred to the Code for Prosecutors, which she said required prosecutors to drop cases if there is no realistic prospect of securing a conviction due to a lack of identification evidence.
In a brief interview after he and Anthony were released, Bailey thanked his lawyer Larry Williams, who represented him and Wiseman since their first trial.
Bailey criticised the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for not discontinuing the case sooner due to the lack of evidence.
“The State attorney is a failure. Seventeen years she holding the matter without a witness. We just in jail innocent for 21 years. Innocent. We never kill Meshach Samuel,” Bailey said. He also called for improvements in the criminal justice system to reduce the wait time for a trial.
“They have to do better. A man should only be staying in jail for two years. Two years not 21 years. It have plenty more in jail still waiting,” he said.
Bailey and Wiseman were also represented by Chelsea John, and Adam Roberts. Anthony was represented by Russell Warner, and Toni Roberts.
