Caution statement tendered as evidence

AS the murder trial of taxi driver Bhomeshwar Sukhdeo continued in the High Court yesterday before Justice Navindra Singh and a 12-member jury following a voir dire, the caution statement was admitted and tendered as evidence in the case.

Sergeant Nigel Stephens, who was stationed at Providence Police Station, told the court, reading from the caution statement that after he had showed the accused Balram Singh the flyer of the deceased which contained his name and photograph after he was arrested and he told him something.

According to Stephens, who recorded the caution statement of Singh in the presence of another officer in the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at Providence Police Station, Singh had blurted out to him: “Dis is the taxi driver we tek the car from and kill.”

Stephens then asked Singh if he wanted to put into writing what he had said and he responded in the affirmative and he elected Stephens to do so and mentioned that the accused did so of his own free will.

Stephens reading to the court yesterday from the caution statement he penned on January 28, 2010, said he and other ranks had accompanied Singh to Agricola and he directed them to a sideline dam where Bhomeshwar Sukhdeo was killed.

Sergeant Stephens stated that he along with the party of policemen in company of Singh went to his Second Street, Agricola home and conducted a search, after which he took them to Industrial Site Eccles, East Bank Demerara.

Stephens said according to the caution statement, Singh directed them to an area on the street at the side of the road where the body of the deceased was placed.

Giving evidence from the caution statement, the police witness told the court that on January 19, 2010 Singh and Travis David came to Georgetown and he waited in the vicinity of Silvie’s Store at the bus park, while David went and returned in a white wagon car driven by an Indian man.

Stephens said Singh went in the back seat of the said car and they went to Agricola sideline dam, where Davis pulled out a .38 revolver and shoot the deceased to the left side of his neck and then put Sukhdeo in the back seat of the car.

The caution statement read by Stephens stated that he then went in the front seat passenger side of the car while the vehicle was driven by David and they drove to Eccles Industrial Site where they placed the body of Sukhdeo in the bush at the side of the road and left.

Stephens said they then drove to Singh’s house and parked the car and that night at 18:00 hrs David came and they drove to Industrial Site Eccles and collected the body and went to the Mocha- Arcadia Access Road where they dumped it.

According to the caution statement, Stephens told the court that he did ask the accused if he had burned the body and he said “no.”

Under cross-examination following the reading of the caution statement, Defence Counsel Jermaine Jervis suggested to Stephens that at no time did the accused give such a statement and also put to him that the police wrote it and asked Singh to affix his signature.

The State is being represented by Attorneys-at-Law Narissa Leander and Teshanna James-Lake, while the Defence Counsel is Jermaine Jervis and Clevann Humphrey.

In her opening statement at the commencement of the trial, Leander told the court that the deceased was a taxi driver who was last seen alive on January 19, 2010, after which a search was launched for him and his car.

She added that on January 27, 2010, the car was found at a body workshop in Herstelling New Scheme, East Bank Demerara and later the badly burnt body of Bhomeshwar Sukhdeo was discovered at the Mocha- Arcadia Access Road, also on the East Bank of Demerara.

Leander said the accused Balram Singh was arrested and charged for the offence.

The indictment stated that between January 19 and 27, 2010 in the county of Demerara, the accused, Balram Singh allegedly murdered Bhomeshwar Sukhdeo. The car was hijacked and sold to a taxi service owner in Grove. The charred remains believed to be that of taxi driver, Bhomeshwar Sukhdeo was found at the Mocha- Arcadia Access Road. It is believed that he was shot in the head and set alight, after which his body was dumped.