Derek Achong

One of two sib­lings con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a man and at­tempt­ing to mur­der his broth­er and cousin af­ter forc­ing them to help process their mar­i­jua­na har­vest, on Wednes­day re­fused to reap­pear be­fore the judge who con­vict­ed them in or­der to be sen­tenced.

In June, John and Vic­tor Flo­res were con­vict­ed of mur­der, two at­tempt­ed mur­der charges and one firearm pos­ses­sion charge at the end of the vir­tu­al judge-alone tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas.

While the sib­lings were giv­en the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for the mur­der charge, St Clair-Dou­glas said they still had to be sen­tenced for the less­er of­fences.

When the case came up for hear­ing on Wednes­day, John re­fused to join his younger sib­ling in the video con­fer­enc­ing fa­cil­i­ty at the Port-of-Spain State Prison to par­tic­i­pate in the hear­ing.

“John Flo­res said that the judge is bi­ased and dis­re­spect­ful, so he would not be at­tend­ing court to­day,” the prison of­fi­cer su­per­vis­ing the fa­cil­i­ty said, as he claimed his col­leagues would have to “use force” to com­pel his at­ten­dance.

Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas agreed.

“Use force if you have to. That is your busi­ness,” St Clair-Dou­glas said.

While he was even­tu­al­ly brought to the fa­cil­i­ty al­most half an hour lat­er, St Clair-Dou­glas still could not com­plete the process, as pros­e­cu­tors were un­able to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion on the time they spent on re­mand be­fore be­ing con­vict­ed, which will be de­duct­ed from their even­tu­al sen­tences. He ad­journed the case to Oc­to­ber 26.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the sib­lings were ac­cused of mur­der­ing Seecha­ran Sankar and at­tempt­ing to mur­der Sankar’s broth­er Dood­nath, and their cousin Ro­han “John­ny” Ram­nar­ine on May 24, 2010.

Tes­ti­fy­ing in the tri­al in March, Dood­nath and Ram­nar­ine claimed they left their Charu­ma Vil­lage, Biche home to har­vest ba­nanas from Ram­nar­ine’s gar­den, which was lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance away.

Sankar claimed they were har­vest­ing the pro­duce when they were con­front­ed by the Flo­res broth­ers, who were armed with shot­guns.

He claimed the broth­ers in­struct­ed them to drop their cut­lass­es and told them they had come to kill Ram­nar­ine to send a mes­sage to his (Ram­nar­ine) broth­er, who was in prison at the time.

He claimed the broth­ers then forced them to hike through a forest­ed area and three mar­i­jua­na fields be­fore they ar­rived at a camp­site at the peak of a small moun­tain. Sankar claimed the broth­ers forced them to trim the dried mar­i­jua­na flow­ers for al­most two hours be­fore the old­er one, who he knew from the vil­lage, used Ram­nar­ine’s cell­phone to make a call.

Af­ter the trim­ming was com­plet­ed, one broth­er point­ed his gun at Ram­nar­ine and shot him once in his chest be­fore turn­ing the gun to Sankar’s broth­er and shoot­ing him once in his back.

The oth­er broth­er then shot in Sankar’s di­rec­tion, but he was grazed on the side of his head.

He claimed that he jumped from the cliff in a bid to es­cape the men. He claimed that when he land­ed at the bot­tom of the cliff, he saw Ram­nar­ine, who ap­peared to have al­so jumped af­ter be­ing shot.

Sankar claimed that he as­sist­ed Ram­nar­ine in walk­ing, as he was bleed­ing from his mouth and chest, and they made their way to a riv­er.

The duo then fol­lowed the riv­er’s path un­til they made their way back to the vil­lage, where they con­tact­ed their rel­a­tives and the po­lice.

The Flo­res broth­ers were de­tained days af­ter the in­ci­dent. One was held in a taxi trav­el­ling to Ma­yaro and a shot­gun, which was lat­er iden­ti­fied as the mur­der weapon through bal­lis­tic test­ing, was found in his pos­ses­sion.