A man accused of breaking into the storage bonds of another was on Wednesday remanded to prison.
The allegation against Mohan Ramkissoon is that on December 26, at Georgetown, he broke and entered the storage bond of Noel Sato Bennette and stole a refrigerator, a gas cylinder and other items, valued $160,000. Additionally, between December 23 and December 26, at Georgetown, Ramkissoon is also accused of breaking into Bennette’s bond and stealing a fan valued $10,000.
Appearing before acting Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, Ramkissoon admitted his guilt to the two charges but after he offered an explanation not-guilty pleas were entered for him.
In presenting the facts of the case, Prosecutor Stephen Telford said after realising there had been break-ins, Bennette saw Ramkissoon leaving his bond. The police were later summoned and the accused was arrested and charged.
Telford said that after a search was conducted, the items were found at Ramkissoon’s home.
However, Ramkissoon said that he was innocent of the charge. According to him, he is a horse cart operator and was hired by a man whose name he did not know to remove the items from the premises on the different days. He said too that the gate to the property was opened and that the man who had hired him had a key to the property as well. This, he said, led him to believe that the “place belonged to the man.”
According to Ramkissoon, it was not until he and the man were approached by the police and the man started to run that he realised that something was amiss. “Since I din run, de police hold on me and charge me instead,” he said.
Ramkissoon told the court that he wanted to retain his guilty plea to the charges as he had no money to post bail and he did not want to be “running to court every minute.” It was at this point that the magistrate told him that based on his explanation she would have to enter not guilty pleas for him, since he has refuted the facts presented by the prosecution.
When asked for his address, the labourer told the court that he had no fixed place of abode, explaining that he lived in the cart he was using at the time of his arrest.
Telford then made an application for the man to be denied bail since he had no fixed address.
The case was transferred to Court Three for January 3.
