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Tuesday, July 22, 2025

After 14 years in prison ...Six freed of East Dry River murder

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727 days ago
20230726
Justice Devan Rampersad

Justice Devan Rampersad

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter spend­ing 14 years in prison, six men have been freed of mur­der­ing a man from East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain. 

Vic­tor “Bar­ry” Alphon­so, Mar­lon “Simo” Sey­mour, Mar­vin “Men­ace” Agard, Frankie “Fishiee” Bartholomew, Dar­ryl “Chi­nee” Wade, and Randy “Plopee” St Rose were found not guilty of mur­der at the end of the judge-alone tri­al be­fore Jus­tice De­van Ram­per­sad at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, on Wednes­day.

The men were ac­cused of mur­der­ing 23-year-old Shiv­on “Tu­pac” Lewis, of Lodge Place, on April 12, 2009. 

Lewis was at­tend­ing a wake at his girl­friend’s home in Chi­napoo Vil­lage, Mor­vant, when he was shot and killed. 

In the tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors re­lied on the ev­i­dence of the State’s main wit­ness Adri­an John­son, who did not wit­ness the mur­der but claimed to have been present when the six men were plan­ning it. 

John­son gave a se­ries of sworn state­ments to po­lice and tes­ti­fied dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the case be­fore pass­ing away in June 2014. 

Pros­e­cu­tors were per­mit­ted to use John­son’s de­po­si­tion from the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the group’s even­tu­al tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Ram­per­sad. 

Af­ter pros­e­cu­tors closed their case against the men, their de­fence at­tor­neys made no-case sub­mis­sions in which they chal­lenged the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of John­son’s ev­i­dence. 

Al­though the no-case sub­mis­sions were even­tu­al­ly over­ruled by Jus­tice Ram­per­sad, he es­sen­tial­ly up­held the claims made by the men’s de­fence at­tor­neys over John­son as he ac­quit­ted them. 

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad not­ed that John­son’s ev­i­dence was pure­ly cir­cum­stan­tial and not cor­rob­o­rat­ed by any oth­er ev­i­dence. 

Not­ing that John­son on­ly came for­ward to the po­lice al­most two months af­ter Lewis was killed, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad stat­ed he had a strong mo­tive to lie as in one of his state­ments to the po­lice, he ad­mit­ted to im­pli­cat­ing them af­ter a dis­agree­ment and hoped to be placed in wit­ness pro­tec­tion. 

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad point­ed to nu­mer­ous in­con­sis­ten­cies in John­son’s state­ments as he ruled that he could not re­ly on his claims to con­vict the men. 

In Au­gust 2012, Alphon­so filed a law­suit over be­ing de­nied per­mis­sion to leave prison to at­tend the fu­ner­al of his mur­dered 12-year-old son, Ka­reem. 

His case was par­tial­ly up­held as he was grant­ed a pri­vate view­ing of his son’s body but not al­lowed to at­tend the fu­ner­al at the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen’s head­quar­ters at Mu­cu­rapo Road in St James. 

As part of his de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad com­mend­ed the at­tor­neys in the case for com­plet­ing the tri­al be­fore the Ju­di­cia­ry goes on its an­nu­al va­ca­tion on Mon­day.

Alphon­so was rep­re­sent­ed by Alex­ia Romero and Ami­ra Khan, while Khan ap­peared along­side Wayne Sturge for Bartholomew. Sturge and Adaphia Tran­coso-Ribeiro, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment, rep­re­sent­ed Wade. 

Sey­mour was rep­re­sent­ed by Danielle Ram­per­sad and Michael Mod­este, while Mario Mer­ritt and Ran­dall Raphael rep­re­sent­ed Agard. St Rose was rep­re­sent­ed by Karuna Bis­ram­s­ingh and Kamei­ka Pe­ters. The case was pros­e­cut­ed by An­ju Bho­la-Mc Quan and Josanne For­rester.


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