(Trinidad Express) Police detective Darwin Ghouralal on Monday appeared in court charged with murdering eight-year-old Daniel Guerra.
He appeared in the San Fernando Magistrate’s Second Court before Magistrate Roger Ramgoolam, hours after Director of Public Prosecutions, Roger Gaspard, gave instructions to lay charges in the longstanding case.
Investigators were locked in discussions with Gaspard over the issue at the weekend. Ghouralal was charged by Sgt Anderson Parriman.
Yesterday, the indictable charge was read to Ghouralal that on a date unknown between February 17 and February 21, he murdered Daniel Guerra. He was not called upon to plead. Ghouralal, 41, had 15 years service in the police force and last worked with the Robbery Squad of the Southern Division.
As the charge was being read, Ghouralal crossed his arms in front of him and leaned on the wire of the holding bay.
A dozen police officers, including Acting Superintendent of Police Clarence Boodram, Acting Inspector Robin Rampersad, Acting Sergeant Gordon Maharaj and several constables, were in the courtroom. Legal adviser for the Homicide Department, Sgt Arnold Lutchman, sat at the bar table. No one was seated in the public gallery.
Ghouralal, dressed in a white T-shirt with black piping and pants, was taken to the San Fernando Magistrates Court around 2 p.m. in a heavily tinted dark grey Mitsubishi Lancer. The car drove into the basement of the courthouse, where Ghouralal got out and was taken to the tunnel leading to the Second Court. A police officer then immediately parked a van in front the iron gate leading to the basement, preventing the media from taking photographs.
Moments before the car pulled up, members of the media were told to step away from the roadway and stand across the road, behind a waist high wall.
Before the Magistrate, attorney Shaun Tikasingh, who held for attorney Kevin Ratiram, told the court Ghouralal was a police officer. He asked about arrangements to accommodate “these types of prisoners”.
Police prosecutor Ramdath Phillip said arrangements are made with the infirmary at the prison.
“I understand that is the situation,” Phillip said.
Ramgoolam transferred the matter to the First Court, where Ghouralal is expected to appear today.
Guerra’s decomposing body was found in a river along the Tarouba Link Road, two days after he went missing. The boy, a Standard Two pupil of the Gasparillo Government Primary School, was last seen standing near the track leading to his family’s Bedeau Street, Gasparillo home. He had returned from buying soft drinks at a nearby parlour.
An autopsy paid for by the Government said Guerra died from homicidal asphyxia. Two earlier autopsies said the cause of the child’s death was asphyxia.