The Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack has failed in an application to remove High Court Judge Justice Priscilla Chandra-Hanif from the murder proceedings involving three men accused of killing 17-year-old Haresh Singh in 2020. The judge rejected the State’s argument that her earlier decision to separate the trial of one accused from the proceedings involving the other three created an appearance of bias or amounted to prejudging the case.
The three men whose trial remains before the court are Joel Gittens, Charles Scott and Glaston Henry.
Singh was found bloodied in a rice field in the Number Two Village backdam, West Coast Berbice, on September 9, 2020. The murder generated widespread public concern and protests at the time. The case initially involved four accused, but the court subsequently ordered that one accused be tried separately.
The DPP’s office challenged that decision and later sought the judge’s recusal after the court declined to reconsider the severance ruling. The prosecution argued that aspects of the judge’s reasoning created a reasonable perception that matters which should properly be determined during trial had already been decided. Among the concerns were comments about identification evidence, alibi evidence and a caution statement allegedly made by one of the accused.
Justice Chandra-Hanif rejected that argument. She said the observations in her earlier ruling were made in the context of deciding whether evidence could have a prejudicial effect in a joint trial. They did not amount to findings on whether witnesses were truthful, whether identification evidence was reliable or whether any accused was guilty.
The judge stressed that the ultimate determination of guilt belongs to the jury.
“The trial judge is not the arbiter of fact and does not determine guilt,”
she said.
She also warned against treating every strongly contested ruling as a basis for recusal.
According to the judgment, a recusal application is not an appeal against a decision with which one party disagrees.
The ruling allows Justice Chandra-Hanif to remain seized of the proceedings. It does not determine the guilt or innocence of any of the accused. The case now moves forward against the backdrop of a murder that has remained unresolved for six years.
The latest ruling represents another procedural development in a case that has endured repeated legal steps since the teenager’s death.
The court’s decision also reinforces an important distinction in criminal proceedings: decisions made during case management and evidentiary rulings do not, by themselves, determine the ultimate question of guilt. That question remains for trial.
And after six years, the central issue remains whether the evidence ultimately presented in court will establish who was responsible for Haresh Singh’s death.
