Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
The jury in the trial of six police officers accused of murdering three friends from Moruga in 2011, yesterday heard the steps allegedly taken by the officers to cover up their actions.
The details were provided by their former colleague, WPC Nicole Clement, who was initially jointly charged with them for the triple murder but became a state witness.
On Monday, Clement was deemed a hostile witness by High Court Judge Carla Brown-Antoine after she declined to testify due to “safety and security concerns”. Her testimony during the preliminary inquiry, in which she claimed two of the friends survived the initial barrage of gunshots on their vehicle but were executed at a second location, was read to the jury.
Justice Brown-Antonie’s staff continued reading the lengthy deposition to the 12-member jury when the trial resumed yesterday.
Clement claimed that after one of the friends died at the scene of the first shooting at the corner of Rochard Douglas Road and Gunness Trace in Barrackpore, she and two of her colleagues placed the body in the trunk of their police vehicle.
She said the two surviving victims, a man and a woman, were placed in the vehicle and taken to a gravel road off the M2 Ring Road in Woodland where they were shot by one of her colleagues and were then placed in the trunk with their deceased friend.
She claimed her colleague drove slowly to the Princes Town Health Facility and only put on the vehicle’s siren when they were near. She alleged that while en route, her colleague stopped the vehicle to check a tyre as he thought that he shot it by mistake.
Clement said she was told by one of her colleagues that the male victim only succumbed to his injuries as they approached the hospital.
“He said like that man didn’t want to dead. He took his last breath on the road here,” she said.
She said she and her colleagues had to call for backup while at the facility as the trio’s irate relatives had gathered there and were protesting. She said she became emotional when she saw the male victim’s four-year-old son.
“I felt that I was going crazy and I needed to leave,” Clement said.
After the shooting, Clement said she and her colleagues were placed on leave for seven days and during the period they held several clandestine meetings during which they tried to ensure that their reports on the shooting were consistent. The meetings were held at several locations, including San Fernando Hill and the first crime scene in Barrackpore.
“That is the normal police culture when things like this happen … Everyone sticks together and writes the same report … One squad. One song,” she said.
Clement said one of her colleagues provided the others with information on the progress of the investigation which had been leaked to him.
“He said that they (investigators) would target me as I was the weak link,” she said.
She also alleged that she was invited to join her colleagues on an impromptu recreational trip to Tobago during their period on leave.
“I told them that families had just lost the lives of their relatives and I don’t think that was right at that time,” she said.
Clement said two of her colleagues wrote her report and she just signed although she knew it was erroneous.
“That is the way we were trained,” she said.
During cross-examination by Senior Counsel Israel Khan at the inquiry, Clement said she decided to confess what transpired when she was approached by investigators after being charged alongside her colleagues.
Sgt Khemraj Sahadeo and PCs Renaldo Reviero, Glenn Singh, Roger Nicholas, Safraz Juman, and Antonio Ramadin are accused of murdering Abigail Johnson, Kerron Eccles, and Alana Duncan on July 22, 2011.
In his opening address in the case, lead prosecutor Gilbert Peterson, SC, claimed the officers were targeting Duncan’s common-law husband, Shumba James, who testified earlier in the trial. James narrowly escaped because he went in a friend’s vehicle while the trio followed in the Nissan B15 that he was known to have used.
The six officers are also being represented by Ulric Skerritt and Arissa Maharaj. The State is also being represented by Elaine Greene, Giselle Ferguson-Heller, and Katiesha Ambrose-Persadsingh.
The trial is scheduled to resume this morning.