Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong @guardian.co.tt

A man from east Port-of-Spain has been freed of shoot­ing at a group of po­lice of­fi­cers in­clud­ing re­cent­ly ap­point­ed Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, over two decades ago.

Ken Fos­ter, of Char­ford Court, Port-of-Spain, was freed of a se­ries of crim­i­nal of­fences at the end of his judge-alone tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas yes­ter­day morn­ing.

In ar­riv­ing at the not guilty ver­dicts for Fos­ter, Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas re­ject­ed the ev­i­dence of Alexan­der and his for­mer col­leagues as he found that he was not sure that Fos­ter com­mit­ted the crime be­yond a rea­son­able doubt.

Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas said, “Look­ing at the ev­i­dence as a whole, I am not sure the ac­cused shot at any­one. I am not sure he was in pos­ses­sion of a firearm or am­mu­ni­tion.”

Fos­ter was ac­cused of shoot­ing at Alexan­der, Phillip Forbes, An­drew Lawrence, and Vic­tor Gra­ham with in­tent to cause them griev­ous bod­i­ly harm and of pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion aris­ing out of an in­ci­dent on April 3, 2002.

Pros­e­cu­tors claimed that Alexan­der, who was a po­lice con­sta­ble at the time, and his then-col­leagues were on pa­trol in Mor­vant when they re­ceived a re­port of a car be­ing stolen.

The of­fi­cers claimed that they saw a ve­hi­cle match­ing the de­scrip­tion of the stolen ve­hi­cle dri­ving along La­dy Young Road and they chased af­ter it.

They claimed that Fos­ter, who was in the front pas­sen­ger seat, shot in their di­rec­tion and they re­turned fire.

They al­leged that the car stopped near a walkover and Fos­ter shot at them once again.

Alexan­der re­port­ed­ly shot Fos­ter and hit him on his but­tocks.

Al­though Fos­ter did not tes­ti­fy in his de­fence in the tri­al, which be­gan in March, his de­fence at­tor­ney Pe­ter Carter raised nu­mer­ous is­sues with the ev­i­dence while cross-ex­am­in­ing the wit­ness­es.

Through Carter, Fos­ter con­tend­ed that he was framed by the of­fi­cers af­ter he re­fused to iden­ti­fy then-re­put­ed gang leader Ker­win “Fresh” Phillip as a pas­sen­ger in the car.

Carter al­so point­ed out that there were no sta­tion di­ary notes de­tail­ing what tran­spired, pos­si­ble col­lu­sion in the of­fi­cers’ writ­ten state­ment, and is­sues with the chain of cus­tody of the firearm, am­mu­ni­tion, and spent shells al­leged­ly re­cov­ered on the scene of the pur­port­ed shootout.

Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas agreed with Carter’s com­plaints, par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­la­tion to un­ex­plained changes in the mark­ings that were placed on the ev­i­dence gath­ered in the case.

“These dis­crep­an­cies leave the court in doubt,” Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas said.

Min­is­ter: We re­spect the de­ci­sion of the court

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day evening, Alexan­der said he ac­cept­ed the court’s de­ci­sion.

“The court has to make a de­ci­sion, that is why they are an in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion,” he said.

“I guess who in the kitchen would feel the heat. That was us (the of­fi­cers),” he added.

“We know what hap­pened on that day and we ex­pressed it to the court. If the court felt that way, we re­spect the de­ci­sion of the court.”