Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Two broth­ers and their neigh­bour, all from Freeport, have been freed of bur­glary and sac­ri­lege, even though they ad­mit­ted that they stole five air con­di­tion­ing con­densers from a church near their homes.

Govin­da and Orkaron Mo­hammed and Ra­jin Seep­er­sad were freed of the charges last week af­ter High Court Mas­ter Whit­ney Franklyn up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion filed by their lawyers Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh and Kavi­ta Moonasar.

Mas­ter Franklyn not­ed that the trio could not be con­vict­ed de­spite their ad­mis­sion of crim­i­nal con­duct, as there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to prove the spe­cif­ic crim­i­nal charges they were ac­cused of.

The charges stemmed from a pur­port­ed in­ci­dent at the Chris­t­ian Prayer Cen­tre and a sev­en-bed­room house, which are lo­cat­ed on the same com­pound at Grant Trace, Beau­car­ro Road, Freeport, in Ju­ly 2025.

The claimant, who con­trols both build­ings, claimed he dis­cov­ered that five 36,000 BTU air-con­di­tion­ing con­densers from the church were stolen. He claimed that the house was bur­gled and sev­er­al air-con­di­tion­ing units were al­so stolen.

The trio was ar­rest­ed and charged with the of­fences af­ter two of the units linked to the church were found at the sib­lings’ home.

In the no-case sub­mis­sion, the trio’s lawyers claimed that pros­e­cu­tors failed to prove that the cen­tre was a place of di­vine wor­ship. They al­so claimed pros­e­cu­tors had failed to prove es­sen­tial el­e­ments of the of­fences they were ac­cused of.

“The de­fence sub­mits that, even tak­en at its high­est, the pros­e­cu­tion’s case does not es­tab­lish the of­fences charged,” they said.

In de­ter­min­ing the ap­pli­ca­tion, Mas­ter Franklyn ruled that the cen­tre was a place of wor­ship.

She not­ed that pros­e­cu­tors had to prove that both the church and the house had been bro­ken in­to or out of.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she said to prove sac­ri­lege, there must be ev­i­dence of an ar­restable of­fence be­ing com­mit­ted at a place of di­vine wor­ship.

Mas­ter Franklyn point­ed out that there was no ev­i­dence the trio com­mit­ted a bur­glary at the church or the house.

She not­ed that af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed, the men ad­mit­ted they stole the con­densers that were mount­ed to the ex­ter­nal wall of the church. They al­so claimed they en­tered and ex­it­ed the prop­er­ty through a bro­ken-down chain-link fence.

She al­so re­ferred to the fact that doors for the church build­ing were not tam­pered with and items were not tak­en from in­side.

“There are dis­tinct of­fences of bur­glary and steal­ing. A per­son may be con­vict­ed of steal­ing where items are tak­en from the said place or dwelling house, even if the state is un­able to prove the of­fence of bur­glary, that is, that the per­son broke and en­tered the said place or dwelling house,” Mas­ter Franklyn said.

“Even if the court were to re­gard the prop­er­ty of the church as in­clud­ing the grounds there­of, there has been no break­ing out,” she added.

Deal­ing with the house, Mas­ter Franklyn said, “None of the items said to have been tak­en were found in the pos­ses­sion of the ac­cused pris­on­ers.

“The re­cent pos­ses­sion of the air-con­di­tion­er con­densers which were bolt­ed to the ex­te­ri­or of the church, while that may have been suf­fi­cient to es­tab­lish ev­i­dence of an­oth­er of­fence, for ex­am­ple, that of lar­ce­ny, it is in­suf­fi­cient in the con­text of the fac­tu­al back­ground of this case to es­tab­lish cir­cum­stan­tial­ly or oth­er­wise that these ac­cused pris­on­ers were al­so li­able for the break-in of the dwelling house.”

Based on her rul­ing, Mas­ter Franklyn dis­charged the trio.