…relatives of the men accused of killing Henry boys question as lawyers show up to represent the suspects without their knowledge
By Clifford Stanley
Magistrate Peter Hugh on Tuesday postponed the hearing of charges against the three men accused of killing Isaiah Henry and Joel Henry to March 2nd next.
The accused men were not in court.
Magistrate Hugh fixed that date after Police Prosecutor Inspector Phillip Sheriff told him that the Police files in the matter are completed and statements could be handed over to the accused on that date.
A date for the commencemet of the Preliminary Inquiry could be fixed thereafter.
Meanwhile, earlier in the Court, much to the surprise of relatives of the accused men, three lawyers namely Attorneys: Dexter Todd Dexter Smartt and Shareefa Parks informed Magistrate Hugh that they were representing Vinod Gopaul and Anil Sanchara.
The relatives of the two men said that they had not been contacted nor consulted in any form and they were unaware of who would be paying the fees of the attorneys.
During the session Magistrate Hugh made contact with two of the accused at their locations in prison via What’s app using a cell phone.
The Magistrate disclosed that he had been assured that the communicationfacilities at the Blairmont Court, will soon be upgraded to ensure the involvement of all stakeholders in virtual hearings at the Court.
The badly mutilated bodies of Isaiah Henry, 16, and Joel Henry, 19 both of Number Three Village, West Coast Berbice (WCB)were found dumped in a clump of bushes in the backlands of nearby Cotton Tree Village on Sunday afternoon September 6th 2020 after they failed to return home from a trip into the forested area the day before.
The horrific manner in which the teenagers were killed sparked outrage in the villages and many residents took their protest to the main roadway collecting debris and setting them alight on the roadway.
The police investigations into the deaths of the Henry cousins dragged on until mid January 2021 when they arrested and charged three men namely 20-year-old Akash Singh, called “Monkey,” of Zeelugt Squatting Area, East Bank Essequibo (EBE); his stepbrother, 34-year-old Anil Sancharra, called “Dan pole” and “Rasta,” of D’ Edward Village, West Coast Berbice (WCB); and 30-year-old Vinod Gopaul, called “Magga,” of Yakusari, Black Bush Polder, Corentyne, with the murder of the two teenagers.
The Police charged Sancharra and Gopaul jointly and Singh separately.
Singh reportedly confessed to being a perpetrator in the killings and allegedly implicated the other two accused men in a confession statement.
Since the charges were laid relatives of the two teenagers have been alleging that the three men had nothing to do with the killings but were mere scapegoats in a botched Police investigation or even worse a cover up while the real perpetrators have gone scot- free.
No one has to date been charged with the murder of Haresh Singh.
The three accused were due to appear in Blairmont Magistrate Court in West Coast Berbice on February 2nd last but were not brought.
Additionally the Prosecutor had disclosed that he was not in possession of the files and the case had then been postponed to today’s date.
