The two men on trial for fatally shooting a 27-year-old butcher of Liverpool, Corentyne in 2006 were acquitted yesterday when a mixed jury unanimously retuned not guilty verdicts at the Berbice Assizes.
Discharging Samuel Fraser and Compton Green, Justice Winston Patterson told the relieved men that “the members of the jury have thought long and hard and have concluded that you are not guilty. Make use of your time. You are free to go. You are discharged.”
The judge also commended both state and defence counsel for the professional manner in which the case was conducted.
“It was because of your incisiveness, we are able to complete this trial in record time,” the judge remarked. The case had been expected to be completed next week.
Prior to the judge’s ninety-minute summation to the jury, both lawyers for the state and the defence waived their right to address the twelve- member jury.
The accused had opted to give an unsworn statement from the dock in which they both denied killing Gangaram Busjit, alias Vicky.
Meanwhile, in her opening address, State Counsel Fabayo Azore had told the jury that the quiet morning of October 21, 2006, was disturbed by the sounds of gunshots that rang out in the village of Liverpool, Corentyne, Berbice.
Addressing the jury, before Justice Patterson, and Senior Counsel Marcel Crawford, who, in association with his son Ryan, defended Fraser known as ‘Charlie’ and Green, alias ‘Red Eye’, Azore said that at about 3 am that day screams were heard coming from Busjit’s residence.
On looking out, a witness, she said, had observed three armed men standing around Busjit, called Vicky Busjit, with guns pointed in the latter’s direction.
Azore said too that while the shooters stood there two additional shots were heard and then the men ran away.
An investigation was launched and a fourth man was charged.
Following a post-mortem examination by Dr V. Brijmohan, the cause of death was recorded as shock and haemorrhage due to gunshot injuries.
Under cross-examination by Senior Counsel Crawford, Eldon Munroe, the state’s main witness, who had to be upbraided often for speaking in low muffled tones, said that his former employer ‘Kants’, permitted himself and family to reside in the house for which he paid no rent, aback the Busjit’s yard.
Among other duties he had to perform was to oversee the deceased’s elderly father, Nally, and to assist with Vicky’s butchery business.
The witness acknowledged that he did not want to see any harm come to the Busjits whom he came to love.
He confessed that at the time of the incident, Samuel Fraser, who is his cousin, was facing a wounding charge and he was the victim.
Munroe told the court he did not tell his wife, Vicky’s wife, or Nally, that he saw Samuel Fraser, Samuel Fable and Compton Green, shoot Vicky early that morning.
Although he gave the police a statement a few hours after the incident, the witness acknowledged that he did not tell investigators the name of the perpetrators.
However, in a second statement given following the arrival of his former boss ‘Kants’, from the United States, Munroe said he was taken to the Central Police Station where he mentioned the names of the accused persons.
The witness agreed that then Inspector Mc Allister lived about two hundred yards from his home and he had to motor past the Whim, Rose Hall and Albion Police Stations before going to Central Station in New Amsterdam.
Munroe, a labourer, denied defence counsel’s suggestion that he allowed ‘Kants’ to influence him to make another statement to the police.
He agreed however with the deposition which recorded him telling the magistrate that when the police questioned him he had stated that he did not know anything about the story.
Re-examined by Azore, the witness said he was scared about the incident and for that reason he made the second statement as the accused persons had threatened to kill him.
Fraser and Green also called ‘Gold Boy’ were accused of the unlawful killing of the butcher who had gone to an outhouse in the yard where he lived when he was shot. He later succumbed before receiving medical attention.
