Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry at the Providence Magistrate’s Court yesterday adjourned the Buddy’s fuel trial to allow the defence to respond to the prosecution’s submission to amend the charge.
Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) Prosecutor Anil Nandlall yesterday responded to the issues addressed in the defence’s submission after he had been asked to do so by the Magistrate. He had not addressed several of the issues before and the magistrate had asked him to do so before she made a ruling as to whether the defendants should be called upon to lead a defence.
The defence in their no-case submissions had argued that the charges were bad in law. They had argued that the GEA was not empowered or authorized to determine the proportion of marker in the fuel as was stated in the charge.
Nandlall conceded that this was so and stated that that power had previously resided with the GEA under the GEA Act 1997 as amended by the GEA (Amendment) Act 2004. He stated that the principal Act was further amended by the GEA (Amendment) Act of 2005 resulting in Section 5 B (2) of the principal Act now reading “The agency shall add the markers to petroleum and petroleum products at a concentration determined by the Minister by notice in the gazette”. He said that the defect about which the defence complained can be remedied by amendment.
He made an application for the amendment to be made but since neither of the defence counsel, attorneys-at-law Vic Puran nor Glenn Hanoman was present to respond to the application, the magistrate adjourned the matter.
Last September marked two years since the alleged illegal fuel was discovered in a GEA operation.
The agency said that acting on information received officials visited the Buddy’s Farm around 10 pm on September 27, 2005. When they arrived, the ten defendants were seen offloading fuel from a trawler named Ashley S into drums.
A fuel tanker, it is alleged, was already filled. Tests were carried out on the said fuel and it was allegedly found to be illegal.
Arrested and charged were Deonarine Singh of 104 Collingswood, Nandy Park, EBD; Wazir Mohamed of 28 North Road, Bourda; Clement Huntley of 39 Wisroc, Linden; Fitzgerald London of 494 Canvas City, Linden; Sanicharran Ramgolam of Number 64 Village, Corentyne; Ceezann Vandelwin of the Pomeroon River; Errol Prince of 43 Garnett Street, Kitty; Joseph Allen of Diamond Squatting Area, EBD; Ramsahai Basdeo of Lot 101 Cornelia New Housing Scheme and Osbern Richards of Supenaam, Essequibo Coast.
They were jointly charged with possession of fuel without the relevant marking in the right proportion and possession of illegal fuel in a quantity exceeding 2,000 litres without a licence.
The trial of the ten accused and the trial of businessman Omprakash `Buddy’ Shivraj on whose property the alleged illegal fuel was found, have been merged.
