THE Cool Square murder trial ended yesterday with the accused, Junior Bourne, being found not guilty by a mixed jury at the Demerara Assizes.Attorney-at-Law Mr. Huckumchand represented the accused, while Miss Natasha Backer appeared for the prosecution.
The judge and jury in the case were, on Monday, given an eyewitness account of the March 3, 2010 incident, wherein Gadray Baston, who claimed to be the girlfriend of the victim Rawle Harding, said she had identified the accused in the dock, Junior Bourne, as one of the gunmen who had shot and killed Harding during a hold-up at the West Ruimveldt, Georgetown restaurant.
But in answer to cross-examination by defence counsel Huckumchand, the witness, who had given a statement to the police, claimed she did not tell the police that the shooter was about five feet, seven inches in height. She said the description about height was information supplied by the police, and she had nothing to do with it.
The witness was a waitress at Cool Square Restaurant on the night of the killing. She said the shorter of the two robbers had been wearing a cap, but the man she had identified at an identification parade held at Diamond Police Station had been picked out by her from among men, none of whom was wearing a cap.

FIRST TIME
Asked by defence counsel how she was able to identify the accused by the hair when, at the time of the robbery, she was seeing him for the first time with a cap on, she did not answer.
In her evidence-in-chief, she had told State Prosecutrix Natasha Backer that Harding had turned up with a man named ‘Haiti’ at about 22:45 hrs that night, and that a girl had later joined their party.
She said that the two men, who looked like ordinary customers, had turned up afterwards and had bought two beers from her. They began drinking the beer and, during that time, the fair-skinned and taller man enquired from her whether she had ‘eatables’, and she had replied ‘Yes.’
Shortly thereafter, she said, the men were seen attacking Harding with guns, as they robbed him of cash and jewellery. During the shooting that followed, Harding fell, and when taken to hospital, was pronounced dead.
Backer had closed the prosecution’s case on Tuesday, and defence counsel Huckumchand had addressed the jury on Thursday. Justice James Bovell-Drakes had summed up the evidence yesterday, after which he had handed the case over to the jury for consideration and verdict.

(By George Barclay)