A 29-year-old con­trac­tor from San Juan has ap­peared in court for mur­der­ing a man from San­ta Cruz in Oc­to­ber. 

Levi Ben­jamin, of Ramkissoon Trace, San Juan, was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter he ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court charged with un­known per­sons for mur­der­ing 30-year-old Ever­est Walk­er on Oc­to­ber 11. 

In ad­di­tion to the mur­der charge, Ben­jamin was slapped with charges for firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion and for shoot­ing at Walk­er’s friend Er­rol For­tune with in­tent to cause him griev­ous bod­i­ly harm. 

Ben­jamin was al­so charged for pos­ses­sion of a small quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na that was al­leged­ly found in his home when po­lice came to ar­rest him, last Mon­day. 

Ben­jamin was not called up­on to plead to the charges, which were laid in­dictably. 

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, Walk­er and For­tune were walk­ing along Maraj Trace, Quar­ry Road, San Juan, when were they were ap­proached by three armed men, who shot at them be­fore run­ning away. 

Walk­er was struck sev­er­al times and fell off a precipice where he suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

For­tune man­aged to es­cape un­scathed. 

Ben­jamin was ar­rest­ed and charged af­ter an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by act­ing ASP Sean Dhill­paul and WPC Curtrece Skeete of the Re­gion Two Homi­cide Bu­reau. 

Dur­ing his brief court ap­pear­ance, Ben­jamin’s lawyer Kashif Gib­son re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion on the un­known men, who his client was al­leged to have been with when Walk­er and For­tune were at­tacked. 

“We would like to know who these in­di­vid­u­als are,” Gib­son said. 

Be­fore the case was ad­journed to Jan­u­ary 3, po­lice pros­e­cu­tor In­sp Wayne Mo­hammed in­di­cat­ed that there are 25 wit­ness­es to tes­ti­fy. 

Walk­er is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ian Brooks.