— says government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh

GOVERNMENT Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh, testifying on Friday in the murder trial of Travis McDougall, gave as the cause of death of the victim a perforated lung due to a gunshot.
McDougall is alleged to have shot and killed Kitty businessman Ashokkoemar Ragghu, and injured the latter’s wife, Shyrazadi, on August 18, 2014, during the furtherance of a robbery at around 13:30hrs at the traffic lights at the junction of Regent Street and Vlissengen Road, in the vicinity of the Botanical Gardens.
The case saw a voir dire (a trial within a trial) for the most part of Friday to determine the admissibility of evidence into trial. The matter is being heard in the Georgetown High Court before Justice Navindra Singh and a 12-member jury as the trial continues.
On Thursday, state witness Dort Bess told the court that he had witnessed the incident in which the Ragghus were robbed and the husband killed on August 18, 2014, at the Vlissengen Road traffic lights.
Bess, an employee of the National Agricultural Research and Extension Institute (NAREI), recalled that on the day in question, he was proceeding south on Vlissengen Road and had stopped at the junction to obey the traffic lights when his attention was caught by what sounded like raised voices.
Bess said he noticed a car in front of him, and after seeing someone pointing a gun at the driver, he instinctively pulled back in his car seat.

A SCUFFLE
He recalled that there was a scuffle between the driver and the gunman, after which he heard an explosion. At that stage, he said, the gunman reached into the vehicle and took out something. He also recalled hearing the woman who was seated next to the driver in the said car screaming, followed by another explosion.
Bess said that after the explosions, he saw someone with a bag in his hand run from the car to a motorcycle parked a short distance away and shout to the rider who was waiting astride it to get them out of there.
He said that after the thieving pair had left on the motorcycle, he exited his vehicle to see what assistance he could render the occupants of the car in front of him.
He told the court that on reaching the vehicle and seeing the driver in an unresponsive state, he asked passersby to help him take the man to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).
He said when the police arrived on the scene, he escorted them and the injured couple to the GPHC, where he would later give a statement at the police outpost.
The witness testified that he was about four to five feet away from the car in front of him and that throughout the ordeal, his focus was on what was going on inside of the car.

THIN-BONED MALE
Bess said that while he did not see where the motorcycle came from, he distinctly remembers seeing the shooter, whom he described as a thin-boned male, run back to the bike where he joined the medium-built rider astride of it.
Also taking the stand on Thursday was police witness, Detective Sergeant Junior Blair, the officer-in-charge of the CID headquarters’ Forensic Video Analyst Unit CCTV Monitoring Room. His appearance was deemed necessary because on Wednesday, the trial judge ordered the prosecution to make every effort to produce video evidence to the court of the murder/robbery which took place on August 18, 2014.
Blair, however, told the court that he was unable to retrieve any footage of the incident, because the CCTV system cannot facilitate the storage of information after eight months, as it lacks the capability to do so.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Nigel Hughes, Blair told the court that while images cannot be printed at the location, video footage can be extracted, using a disk. He, however, said that as far as he knew, no request for video footage of the incident was ever made.
Two other police witnesses testified on Thursday, after which Detective Superintendent Michael Kingston took the stand, where he said the accused, Travis Mc Dougall, elected him to write the statement he made at the CID office at Brickdam Police Station in the presence of another policeman.
It was during Kingston’s testimony that defence counsel objected and a voir dire was called to facilitate the admissibility of evidence in the trial.
The trial will continue today at 09:00hrs.