The fate of Troy Greene, the alleged hit-man in the murder of hairdresser Bibi Saymar, will rest in the hands of a High Court jury today.
Leading his defence yesterday in the prisoner’s dock, Greene told the court that he had no knowledge of the murder and that he was coerced into signing a caution statement that is being used against him at the trial.
Greene was charged with murdering Bibi Saymar at her home in Hague, West Coast Demerara in 2010. Saymar’s husband, Dennis Persaud, was also charged but was later released after there was insufficient evidence to link him to the murder.
During the trial, which is being presided over by Justice Navindra Singh, a caution statement is the only evidence that the prosecution has linking Greene to the killing. Greene stated that on May 29, 2010, he received a call on his cellphone from an unknown person. He said the man asked him if he knew whom he was talking to and when he said no, the man asked if he was speaking to ‘Troy’ and he answered yes.
Greene recalled the person instructing him to meet him at the Demerara Harbour Bridge and when he asked why, he was told “when you reach we will talk.”
He added that when he reached the bridge, he saw a blue Hilux truck crossing it. “It stopped and I came out of the taxi and walk to the Hilux,” he said, recalling the driver of the vehicle telling him to walk around to the passenger side of the truck. And when he did, he said, he saw a man lying in the back seat of the vehicle. He said the man was lying on his back with a gun, pointed straight to the roof of the vehicle.
“I stepped back…,” he said, adding that at that moment he saw people, dressed in pain clothes, running toward them. He stated that he also noticed a police van and several policemen. In that brief moment, he was handcuffed and thrown into the back of the van, along with the taxi driver.
Greene recalled being carried to a police station and placed in a room and then being beaten. “They ask me who tek the girl life and I said, I don’t know what you are talking about,” he told the jurors. Again, he said, he was beaten and tossed into a cell alone.
After a while, he said, he was taken out of the cell and carried back to the room and was lashed in his head with a wood by a police. He stated that one of the policemen in the room left and returned with a rolled up paper. He said that particular police struck him in his face and head and told him to sign the paper.
But he refused and was beaten again and again, he said, before he eventually signed the document. “I don’t know these police or their names…,” he said.
“When they brought me in, they didn’t even search my pants or my clothes…they concentrated on beating me,” he said, adding that afterward, he was charged and brought before the courts.
On Wednesday, his attorney Peter Hugh, during a cross-examination of a witness, disputed the assertion by the prosecution that the caution statement was freely given by Greene. Hugh had argued that prior to the caution statement, there was no evidence implicating Greene in the stabbing, injury and death of Saymar.
A police witness had told the court that he took Greene’s caution statement, and had held a confrontation between Persaud and Greene at the Leonora Police Station about the murder.
The witness testified that Greene had said Persaud called him on his cellular phone and offered him US$1,500 to go to the couple’s home along with one “Shane Simon” to kill Saymar. In the disputed caution statement, Greene stated that he was picked up by Simon at Market Road, East La Penitence and taken to the couple’s home, where he stabbed Saymar several times about her body.
Government pathologist Dr Vivekanand Brijmohan had also testified that Saymar had died from shock and haemorrhage caused by multiple stab wounds. Two of Saymar’s former neighbours testified also that Saymar and her reputed husband argued constantly.
State attorneys Mercedes Thompson and Stacey Goodings yesterday closed their case as did Hugh. Today’s hearing will begin with closing arguments by both the defence and the state, followed by the deliberation by the jury.
