Little can be done to reopen the murder case against businessman Rondy Jagdeo due to the fact that police are still unable to locate the main eyewitness, who failed to show up to give evidence in court.
Jagdeo was freed of the murder of his close friend Kirk Davis in March this year, after spending seven months in jail. He was discharged at the preliminary inquiry into the murder charge against him after the main witness, Rondel Marks, and two women, who were seen as key to the case, failed to attend court.
Jagdeo, an Alexander Village resident and a popular biker, spent seven months behind bars before he was freed.
Based on the information from the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), following the discharge of Jagdeo, the police file on the case was reviewed to determine what steps could be taken to have the matter taken back before the court.
According to what this newspaper was told, the file was sent back to the police on April 25 with instructions for the ranks to locate the main eyewitness, Marks.
Crime Chief Leslie James has since confirmed that the file was returned with such instructions. He, however, said that the police have not been able to locate the witness to date.
Stabroek News has since been told that without Marks the case will remain stagnant as the police will not be able to present evidence that directly links Jagdeo to the crime. Marks was the only person who has placed Jagdeo at the scene.
Jagdeo has been accused of shooting Davis’ 16 times on September 3, 2013. At Jagdeo’s arraignment, Police Prosecutor Bharat Mangru had said that the accused had learnt that Davis had kissed his wife on the neck one evening while in the Palm Court bar and had gone to Davis’s home to confront him.
Mangru had stated that Jagdeo went to Davis’s home in a silver vehicle and instructed the man to enter it. Mangru told the court that shortly after this, the accused exited the driver’s side of the car, opened the backseat door and shot Davis several times.
The injured man’s body was then dumped out of the vehicle before Jagdeo drove away, Mangru had said.
Stabroek News was told that Marks simply vanished without a summons being served on him.
The inability of the police to place Jagdeo’s injured wife at the crime scene and find more eyewitnesses as well as the fact that the area was very dark at time of the shooting also contributed to the eventual collapse of the case. Jagdeo’s wife had turned up at a private hospital with a gunshot wound following Davis’s murder but she had strongly denied that she sustained her injury as a result of Davis’s shooting.
At the preliminary inquiry, a no-case submission was made by Jagdeo’s attorney, Roger Yearwood, who stated that the prosecution did not prove the elements of the offence, and, in particular, who killed Davis.
Yearwood’s submission was upheld by Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry as no prima facie case had been established against Jagdeo despite the testimonies of the prosecution’s seven witnesses. As a result, Jagdeo’s matter was discharged.
Days after the case was thrown out, Stabroek News learnt that when the preliminary inquiry began on February 5, nine witnesses were summoned and all were present on that occasion except for Marks and Davis’ sfriend Neliffa Dookie.
The following day the matter was called and both Marks and Dookie were again absent. It was subsequently revealed to the court that Dookie was out of town and arrangements were the made for her to attend court on February 10 to give her evidence.
Dookie was at Davis’s home on the night he was shot. The woman had told the police that she was in the bathroom at the time that the shots were fired. However, she never showed up for court and could not be contacted.
The evidence presented by police witnesses was not significant enough to stand alone without Marks’s incriminating testimony.
Stabroek News was told that before every date for which the matter had been fixed, radio messages and summonses were sent out to witnesses.
Some time in March before Jagdeo was discharged, a woman claiming to be the mother of Marks’s child visited the court with three summonses and said that Marks no longer lived at her address. She said too that she did not know where he was. She was told to return to court on March 18 to tell this to the court from the witness box. Although she had promised to return, she never did.
Owing to the fact that the summonses were not served on him directly, the court was unable to issue an arrest warrant for him the source said and none was issued for Dookie as the police were unable to locate her.
A source with knowledge about the case had explained that based on what was presented to the court there was no circumstantial evidence to consider. It was pointed out that the police were unable to link Jagdeo’s wife to the scene and while there was a reasonable suspicion that the gunshot she sustained occurred while she was at Eccles, it could not be proven. The woman had told police investigators that she had been shot in Alexander Village but that could not be confirmed as the police were unable to find anyone who heard a gunshot. Marks, in his statement, had also placed a woman at the scene of the murder. He told police that after Davis entered the car, he heard a woman screaming. That person did not exit the vehicle either before, during or after the gunshots.
The source also said that even if the matter was sent to the High Court, it would have been challenged there, with one of the main grounds being that the area was very dark.
After the shooting, Jagdeo was on the run for almost two months. Reports then surfaced that he was hiding out in neighbouring Suriname, a country which he frequented. He eventually surrendered himself to local police here.
It was now retired Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell who had named Jagdeo as a prime suspect. “Y’all aint hear is a Jagdeo do it?” he had said in response to questions raised by a crowd of mourners who had gathered outside the Brickdam Police Station to demand justice.
