All seven men who were incorrectly returned to prison after being acquitted of the murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman this week were released on Thursday night.
The men secured their freedom after Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard, SC, admitted that his office had made an error by failing to officially strike out several charges related to the crime which were discontinued by his office in preparation for the trial.
While Gaspard did so during a hearing of a habeas corpus application brought by two of the accused men, the applicants and their former co-accused were released between 5 and 11 pm, as prison officials were awaiting official documents certifying their release.
Naipaul-Coolman was abducted from her home at Lange Park, Chaguanas, on December 19, 2006. A $122,000 ransom was paid by her family but she was not released and her body has never been found.
During the trial, which began in March 2014, prosecutors contended that the businesswoman was held captive at a house in Upper La Puerta, Diego Martin, shared by three of the accused men, before she was killed, dismembered and her body disposed of.
Twelve men from the community initially went on trial for the crime—twins Shervon and Devon Peters, their brother Anthony Gloster, brothers Marlon and Earl Trimmingham, brothers Keida and Jamille Garcia, Antonio Charles, Ronald Armstrong, Allan “Scanny” Martin, Joel Fraser, Lyndon Charles.
Martin was shot dead by police after staging a daring prison break from the Port-of-Spain State Prison in July last year. Fraser was freed by presiding Judge Malcolm Holdip in January, after Holdip upheld a no-case submission from his attorneys who claimed the State had presented insufficient evidence linking him to the crime.
Throughout the trial, defence attorneys raised several inconsistencies in the evidence, including the mental health of the state's main witness Keon Gloster, who claimed he was coerced by police into implicating the accused men, and allegations that a gun linked to the kidnapping crime scene had been planted in one of the accused men's homes.
After deliberating for four hours on Tuesday, the 12-member jury before Holdip found all the men except Earl Trimmingham and Lyndon Charles not guilty. The two were ordered to be retried.