The prosecution’s failure to file and serve statements to defence lawyers on Monday prevented Freddie Kissoon from testifying in the trial of the men charged with dousing him with human faeces.
PPP members Kwame McCoy, 40, and Jason Abdulla, 34, and former bodyguard Shawn Hinds, 51, are charged with assaulting Kissoon, a newspaper columnist and activist, whom they are accused of dousing with human faeces during an attack in 2010.
At the commencement of their trial on Monday, two police officers were called as witnesses by Prosecutor Kerry Bostwick and they were later cross-examined by attorneys Glenn Hanoman, Latchmie Rahamat, Euclin Gomes and George Thomas, who appeared for the defence.
Kissoon, who is the lead witness for the prosecution, was then identified by Bostwick as next on the list to testify but this was quickly objected to by the defence team. According to the defence, none of Kissoon’s statements were filed and served to them by the prosecution and to do so during the trial would be an abuse of the process. “This represents an abuse of process. Since February 22, since the matter engaged the court, the prosecution had ample time to serve statements. There was no indication that any witnesses in their case statement have not been served to the defence,” Hanoman argued. According to the lawyer, they would have needed all statements to prepare their defence in the matter.
Rahamat and Thomas, who also protested alongside Hanoman, told the court that Kissoon’s testimony would have come as a surprise to them since they had assumed that since they were not served with his statements in the beginning, then he automatically had no part in the prosecution’s case.
Rahamat called the withholding of the statements unfair and questioned why the prosecution had kept it to themselves so long. Thomas added that since it was his story the defence came to challenge, why weren’t Kissoon’s statement filed and served to them first. “This leaves the defence in total embarrassment. The court should not permit the prosecution to serve the statements,” Thomas noted.
Bostwick told the court that he was very sorry and stated that it was not a deliberate act to withhold the statements from the defence. According to the prosecutor, they thought that they had served all the statements but they were wrong. He also told the court that he could not see how, if the statements were served then, how it would affect the defence. The prosecutor said that the oversight was by no means intended to undermine the defence as they will have time to go through the statements.
Magistrate Judy Latchman eventually ordered that the statements be filed and served to the defence before the end of the day. She also adjourned the matter until August 23.
