The deadly gas station bombing case has been adjourned to December 30, with the prosecution Tuesday filing an application for the matter to proceed via a paper committal.
Prosecutor, Mandel Moore, told Acting Chief Magistrate Faith McGusty that all statements of evidence have been fully disclosed and that the matter could be heard in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.
The disclosure includes forensic analysis results that had been pending from India, where two key items recovered from the crime scene were sent for examination.
A paper committal is a judicial process during which a Magistrate determines if there is sufficient evidence for a case to proceed to a High Court based solely on written statements and documentary evidence, without an oral hearing.
But defence attorney, Mikel Puran, representing one of the seven accused, Johnny Boodram, requested additional time to review the newly provided evidence with the court granting his request, and adjourning the matter to December 30. The seven accused people in the deadly bombing that claimed the life of a six-year-old child.
Moore made the application as the prime suspect, Venezuelan national, Daniel Alexander Ramirez Poedemo, 33, along with three of his co-accused Alexander Bettencourt, 44, Jhonny Boodram,27 and 33-year-old Kystal LaCruz appeared before the court virtually from their prisons.
The prosecution alleges that Poedemo on October 26, with intent to threaten the security and sovereignty of Guyana or to strike terror among its people, used an explosive device at the Mobil Fuel Station at Regent and King Streets, Georgetown, resulting in the death of the six-year-old child.
The court also heard that Boodram aided and abetted Poedemo with intent to commit the same offence.
The other accused persons, Ramesh Pramdeo, 51, Wayne Corriea, 44 and 33-year-old Jennifer Rodriguez, have been charged with aiding and abetting Poedemo with intent to threaten the security and safety of Guyana to strike terror on the people by the use of an explosive substance by placing it at the gas station resulting in Bourne’s death.
Meanwhile, family and friends of Boodram picketed the Court calling for his release.
Among those on the picket line was his sister, Vanessa Boodram, who pleaded his innocence, telling reporters that her brother, who has been living in Guyana for the past nine years, worked as a taxi driver, and on the day of the bombing, he was merely working.
“I want Jhonny get justice because this boy innocence. For years he is a taxi driver…Everybody knows he innocent…He ain’t get nothing fuh do with this, nothing, nothing. He just get one call, he get hire and that is it, normal thing. He worked taxi for years,” she said.
His reputed wife, Angeli Manohar, said those guilty of the deadly bombing must be prosecuted, but an innocent man should not have to face the Court for something he has no knowledge of.
“Jhonny is just a taxi driver. He get a call, he was doing he job on that day. He don’t know anything that was going on. Ah mean, how can a taxi driver know what a passenger going to do or what is them intention. Meanwhile, all we need justice for what happen on that day, they need to get the guilty ones but they must not send innocent people to prison just like that,” Manohar said.
Manohar said with Boodram on remand, he is unable to provide for his family including his one year old son.
Caribbean Today
