Derek Achong

A 21-year-old Venezue­lan woman, who was charged with firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion af­ter her friend was killed in an al­leged shootout with po­lice in March, has been freed.

Mag­is­trate Re­han­na Ho­sein dis­missed the charges against Moni­ka Jerez-Gon­za­lez dur­ing a hear­ing in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day.

Ho­sein’s de­ci­sion was based on com­plaints from Jerez-Gon­za­lez’s lawyer Criston J Williams over the fail­ure of the po­lice of­fi­cer, who charged her, to at­tend hear­ings of the case.

The mag­is­trate al­so con­sid­ered that pros­e­cu­tors had no wit­ness­es ready to tes­ti­fy al­though the case was list­ed for tri­al yes­ter­day. Pros­e­cu­tors had al­so failed to dis­close the ev­i­dence against Jerez-Gon­za­lez dur­ing pre­vi­ous hear­ings, as re­quired un­der the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Rules.

Af­ter the de­ci­sion was hand­ed down, an emo­tion­al Jerez-Gon­za­lez thanked Ho­sein and the Ju­di­cia­ry for ex­pe­dit­ing her case.

Jerez-Gon­za­lez, who main­tained her in­no­cence since be­ing charged, al­so claimed that po­lice fab­ri­cat­ed the case against her.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, around 11.30 pm on March 28, Jerez-Gon­za­lez and her 31-year-old friend Mar­co An­to­nio Gon­za­les, al­so from Venezuela, drove past a road­block in Diego Mar­tin and failed to fol­low in­struc­tions from po­lice to stop.

Po­lice claimed they were shot at when they even­tu­al­ly in­ter­cept­ed the ve­hi­cle along St Lu­cien Road. They re­turned fire and wound­ed both friends.

Gon­za­les died on the scene while Gon­za­lez, who was shot in her face, was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

A quan­ti­ty of Unit­ed States (US) cur­ren­cy was al­leged­ly found on Gon­za­lez, while the loaded gun was al­leged­ly found in­side the car.

An au­top­sy per­formed Gon­za­les’ body showed that he died from six gun­shot wounds—one in the back of the neck, four times in the mid-back re­gion and one to the low­er back.

The cou­ple was vis­it­ing T&T to pur­chase food items to ex­port his coun­try, which is in the throes of an eco­nom­ic and so­cial cri­sis. Gon­za­les’ body was flown to Venezuela for his fu­ner­al.

Jerez-Gon­za­lez was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Kavi­ta Roop-Boodoo.