A Cara­pichaima labour­er, ac­cused of mur­der­ing a man and wound­ing his friend in Oc­to­ber 2023, has been freed due to de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing his case.

Anil Roop­nar­ine was dis­charged by High Court Mas­ter Mar­garet Sookraj-Goswa­mi on Wednes­day.

Roop­nar­ine was ac­cused of mur­der­ing 20-year-old Joshua Mooni­ram and wound­ing his friend on Oc­to­ber 13, 2023.

Mooni­ram was at his friend’s Freeport home when five in­trud­ers en­tered.

Four of the in­trud­ers were armed with cut­lass­es, while one had a gun.

The gun­man shot Mooni­ram and his friend sev­er­al times be­fore he ran away with his ac­com­plices.

Both wound­ed men were tak­en to hos­pi­tal, but Mooni­ram suc­cumbed to his in­juries while re­ceiv­ing emer­gency treat­ment.

Roop­nar­ine was ar­rest­ed less than a week lat­er and was even­tu­al­ly charged with Mooni­ram’s mur­der, the at­tempt­ed mur­der of his friend, pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion and pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion to en­dan­ger life.

The suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing in Roop­nar­ine’s case was sched­uled to com­mence this week, but when the case was called by Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi, pros­e­cu­tors had not yet filed an in­dict­ment or dis­closed ev­i­dence against Roop­nar­ine.

Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi dis­charged Roop­nar­ine as she con­sid­ered re­peat­ed fail­ures by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to com­ply with dead­lines set by the court.

Roop­nar­ine was rep­re­sent­ed by Is­rael Khan, SC, and Aris­sa Ma­haraj.