‘Mice’ freed of ‘Cats’ murder indictment
JUSTICE Brassington Reynolds, at the Berbice Assizes, yesterday directed the mixed jury to formally return a not guilty verdict in favour of murder accused Balmiki Shamidhar alias ‘Mice.’
Before discharging the freed man, who had been a remanded prisoner for almost four years, the judge admonished him to make good use of the opportunity given him.
“We were not there when you and your friends were imbibing alcohol, which placed you in a difficult situation. Anyhow, make good use of your life, as you are a young man,” Justice Reynolds told Shamidhar.
Immediately after his discharge, Shamidhar hurried out of the courtroom, leaving his mother and Defence Counsel Mursulene Bacchus inside.
In making his ruling, the judge said, while he was satisfied that the body and soul of the case for the Prosecution lies in the oral statement which was admitted in evidence, he held that, taken to the highest, there is not enough evidence for a jury, properly directed, to convict.
Justice Reynolds observed that Police Detective Constable Seth Fraser, to whom the statement was made, wrote it one week after an alleged confrontation with the accused and in the finest of the Queen’s English.
But the judge added that the attestation is bound to provoke curiosity and noted that Fraser spoke of a scene although he never said how he came to be there.
Earlier in the week, Justice Reynolds upheld a Defence objection and threw out a deposition made after caution, attributed to the accused.
The judge, however, admitted an oral one, in which the accused, responding to an investigator, allegedly said: “Officer, this is the same knife I used to stab Hemchand Persaud called ‘Cats’.”
That followed several days of  a voir dire (trial within a trial), which was triggered after Defence Counsel Bacchus objected to the tendering of the document through Assistant Superintendent of Police Gary Mc Allister.
Bacchus cited threats and promises held out by persons in authority, submitting that  they were in direct contravention of the principles governing the Judges’ Rules.
Subsequently, Bacchus made further legal submissions at the close of the case for the Prosecution, which was conducted by State Counsel Dionne Mc Cammon.
Mc Cammon led testimony that, on October 29, 2006, at about 19:00 h, the victim, his accused killer and others were at a rum shop in Number 47 Village, Corentyne, where an argument arose.
Later, after they had left there,  Shamidhar was seen standing in front of his home with a knife with which he allegedly inflicted the fatal injury on Persaud.
A post mortem revealed that the cause of death was shock and haemorrhage, due to a stab wound.