Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter spend­ing al­most two decades in prison, four men, in­clud­ing a for­mer mem­ber of the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF), have been freed of mur­der­ing a kid­napped re­al es­tate agent.

Paul Boodoo, Mar­tin Crichlow, Sher­wyn Crys­tom, and for­mer sol­dier Ri­car­do Steven­son were freed yes­ter­day af­ter High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion of in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

While Jus­tice Singh found that there was ev­i­dence that the men par­tic­i­pat­ed in Ger­ald Gopaul’s kid­nap­ping, she ruled that there was no ev­i­dence they were aware that he would be harmed af­ter he was hand­ed over.

“The court con­cludes that there was no ev­i­dence from which a prop­er­ly di­rect­ed ju­ry could in­fer that the ac­cused men in­tend­ed to kill or to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm to the vic­tim, Ger­ald Gopaul,” she said.

“The ev­i­dence demon­strates on­ly that they par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ini­tial ab­duc­tion, but be­yond that, there is an ev­i­den­tial void.”

As part of her rul­ing, Jus­tice Singh stayed the pro­ceed­ings against the men based on claims of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct made by their de­fence at­tor­neys. The stay means that the men can­not be recharged for the of­fence.

Gopaul, 52, was ab­duct­ed from a bar near his Di­a­mond Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, home, on Ju­ly 8, 2005. A $500,000 ran­som was de­mand­ed but it was not paid.

Gopaul was al­leged­ly held cap­tive in the forest­ed area of Bourg Mu­la­tresse be­fore he died. His body was then dumped at Trantrail Road in St Au­gus­tine.

A post-mortem re­vealed that he had been beat­en to death.

The four men along with Ken­neth Pierre, Clif­ford So­rias, Kendall Joseph, and Kendell Davis were charged with his mur­der.

The State’s main wit­ness against them was for­mer sol­dier Ja­son Per­ci­val, who al­leged­ly helped plan and par­tic­i­pat­ed in Gopaul’s ini­tial ab­duc­tion.

Per­ci­val has a crim­i­nal his­to­ry as he was ex­tra­dit­ed for the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of Unit­ed States war vet­er­an Bal­ram “Ba­lo” Ma­haraj, who was on va­ca­tion in Trinidad when he was ab­duct­ed al­most four months be­fore Gopaul.

Per­ci­val plead­ed guilty to of­fences in the Unit­ed States and re­turned to Trinidad af­ter serv­ing his 13-year sen­tence.

Steven­son was al­so im­pli­cat­ed in Ma­haraj’s kid­nap­ping and mur­der but was not ex­tra­dit­ed to the Unit­ed States.

In 2014, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) dis­con­tin­ued the charge re­lat­ed to Ma­haraj against Steven­son be­cause of in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence.

In ear­ly 2020, the eight men went on tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Nor­ton Jack for Gopaul’s mur­der. How­ev­er, the tri­al had to be abort­ed due to the clo­sure of court fa­cil­i­ties dur­ing the ear­ly stages of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

While the group was await­ing a new tri­al, So­rias, Pierre, Joseph and Davis all plead­ed guilty to felony mur­der and were sen­tenced.

Un­der the felony mur­der rule, the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der is waived in cir­cum­stances where the death of the vic­tim is not in­tend­ed and oc­curs dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence.

The re­main­ing four men went on tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Singh in Jan­u­ary.

In her de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Singh found nu­mer­ous in­con­sis­ten­cies and con­tra­dic­tions in Per­ci­val’s ev­i­dence.

“His in­vo­ca­tion of the priv­i­lege against self-in­crim­i­na­tion, cou­pled with the con­straints im­posed by the terms of his con­di­tion­al im­mu­ni­ty and his sta­tus as an ac­com­plice, and crim­i­nal­ly ex­posed to pros­e­cu­tion for oth­er kid­nap­ping and con­spir­a­cy to mur­der mat­ters, tak­en cu­mu­la­tive­ly, ren­der his tes­ti­mo­ny in­her­ent­ly weak and un­re­li­able,” she said.

The State’s re­liance on Per­ci­val’s ev­i­dence was al­so the ba­sis of the stay.

“The court finds that the con­duct of the State in con­tin­u­ing to re­ly on Ja­son Per­ci­val as its main wit­ness de­spite clear in­di­ca­tions of his un­re­li­a­bil­i­ty and the un­re­solved se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions against him con­sti­tutes pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct war­rant­i­ng a stay,” she said.

“I find that this is not mere­ly a mat­ter of ev­i­den­tial weak­ness but a fun­da­men­tal is­sue of fair­ness and in­tegri­ty.”

Crichlow was rep­re­sent­ed by Wayne Sturge, Ran­dal Raphael, and Danielle Ram­per­sad, while Mario Mer­ritt and Tra­cy-Ann Wilt­shire rep­re­sent­ed Crys­tom.

Boodoo was rep­re­sent­ed by Evans Welch and Ki­maa­da Ot­t­ley, while Pamela El­der, SC, and Owen Hinds Jr rep­re­sent­ed Steven­son.

Nor­ma Pe­ters rep­re­sent­ed the DPP’s Of­fice.