ALMOST four months after the May 20th slaying of Verone Pattoir at Lot 42 Mudflat, Stanleytown, New Amsterdam, hire car driver Sevak Rampersaud called Suresh, has been charged with her killing.
The 36-year-old appeared before Magistrate Adela Nagamootoo at the Reliance Court in East Canje, where he was not required to plea to an indictable charge of murder.
Defence counsel Mursulene Bacchus, on enquiring from the police as to whether they were ready to proceed with the Preliminary Inquiry, was told that the file has been returned with the advice to proceed.
The PI can commence at the convenience of the court, informed prosecutor, Police Corporal Orin Joseph.
Meanwhile, Bacchus told the media that following his client’s arrest, a habeas corpus proceeding was filed for his release and Justice Winston Patterson had made an order instructing the police to show cause why his client should not be released. However, Rampersaud was granted $200,000 station bail, having been released by the police on May 24th last.
He was subsequently re-arrested on Tuesday, prior to his court appearance.
The defendant is expected to re-appear at the New Amsterdam Court on September 19.

Earlier this year, on May 20th, Grade Six student Nickitta Hughes, after returning home from school was horrified after discovering the bloodied body of her mother lying lifeless in the hallway of their home at Lot 42 Mudflat, Stanleytown in New Amsterdam, Berbice.
Nickitta had left her mother Verone Patoir, preparing to launder the family’s clothing, when she, along with her sisters, had left their home earlier that day to attend school.
The St. Aloysius pupil, in company with relatives, recounted to the Berbice media, that she had collected money to buy snacks from her mother and was about to leave home, when she observed a friend of her mother, whom she referred to as ‘Uncle Suresh’, seated in his parked hire car, a short distance away.
The pre teen said she observed from the 100- metre distance, another identifiable male, who, along with a student of Vryman’s Erven Secondary School, was also seated in the vehicle, before she and her siblings, Oshanna and Kathy, joined the car which transported them to school.
However, on returning home at about 14:55 hrs, she mounted the backstairs, and was a bit taken aback on finding the back door ajar. However, on entering the kitchen, then subsequently the hallway, she saw her mother’s feet and blood which flowed on the floor boards. Fearing the worst, the perturbed child called for her younger sister, whilst exiting the home and alerting neighbours in the process.