Killed, dismembered and her body disposed of, the case of well-loved businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman, the CEO of Xtra Foods Supermarket, gripped national attention for close to a decade.
In excess of $60 million spent and ten years later, on May 30, 2016, eight of the ten men accused of her murder have walked free. Two of the other accused—Lyndon James and Earl Trimmingham—will face retrials. In the end, the trial brought no closure. The outcome left citizens upset and was described by many as a travesty of justice.
Naipaul-Coolman’s relatives were mum about the outcome of the case which caused them and many others that she loved years of anguish and left them with emotional scars that may never be healed.
One of the men who was freed, Anthony Gloster, has appealed for justice for the Naipaul family. He said the real perpetrators of the crime must be found and brought to justice.
There are other unquantified costs—the cost for photo copying material, evidential documents, a complement of staff for the judge hearing the trial, payment for marshalls and security. There was also a cost involved for the 16 jurors, including the provision of meals. Twelve of them sat on the trial and there were four supplemental.
Senior Counsels Israel Khan, Dana Seetahal and Gilbert Peterson were the main players retained by the State to prosecute. Khan was paid $1.5 million, Peterson was paid $1.2 million and Seetahal was paid $900,000. Other attorneys were also retained, taking the total close to $7 million.
One of the prosecutors, Seetahal, was murdered in 2014, and security was increased for the two other prosecutors involved in the matter.
And then there’s the cost for defence attorneys from Legal Aid, which was put at $15 million. A note penned by Justice Minister Christlyn Moore was taken to Cabinet for a special arrangement to be made to pay retainer fees to the defence attorneys.
The note to Cabinet requested a monthly payment of $30,000 a month for the duration of the case.
There were ten attorneys who each had instructing attorneys who were paid $20,000 dollars a month. Because Legal Aid does not have its own budget the cost was borne by the Office of the Attorney General.
Added to that, there were payments for lawyers from the Director of Public Prosecution’s (DPP) Office who assisted, DNA testing which had to be done abroad, witnesses had to be brought in from abroad, and the cost of preparation for the trial. Those costs were estimated to be in excess of $7 million.
And then there was the cost of the upkeep of the ten accused for ten years. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said the cost to maintain a prisoner monthly is $25,000. That comes up to a cost of at least $30 million.
So after a trial which lasted two years, the 12-member jury returned a not guilty verdict for eight of the ten accused. DPP Roger Gaspard defended the decision of his office to go to trial despite what defence attorneys said was “insufficient evidence.”
Gaspard told the media outside the Hall of Justice: “In the first place, a no-case submission would have been made in respect of this matter, not so? And the judge would have found that the case was fit and proper to be heard before the jury, not so? Well if it passed the judge at the no-case submission case what would that tell you, not that there is sufficient prima facie evidence to go before the jury, not so?”
Asked what impact this would have on other matters, the DPP responded: “We tend to learn from every case we do.”
What the prosecutors say
Both the prosecution and defence felt justice was served. Both sides described the not-guilty verdict by the jury as “a fair and just outcome.”
Lead prosecutor Israel Khan, SC, said: “The ordinary God-fearing people that sat on this jury had a reasonable doubt in the case and they acquitted.”
Khan also defended the state’s prosecution of the accused men saying “the prosecution never wins or loses. We present the case to the best of our ability and leave it for the jurors to decide.”
Peterson, meanwhile, said it was a groundbreaking trial, one which for the first time ever locally saw the use of video link from a courtroom in London from where two witnesses gave evidence. Peterson described it as “one of the most interesting cases for criminal law students in this country...it was long, complex, thorough, very involved, and anything you can think of in criminal law arose.”
Peterson said the country must see this as “no cost is too high for justice.”
Maharaj: Cases must be done quicker, change criminal procedure
According to former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, there needs to be a proper assessment of the Naipaul-Coolman trial.
Maharaj, who was AG when notorious crime lord Dole Chadee and his gang of eight were executed on June 3, 1999, for the 1994 murders of several members of the Baboolal family in Williamsville, said while it would be unfair to make a general assessment of the trial, he believes the whole criminal procedure is wrong and needs to be reviewed.
Maharaj, who had put his political reputation at stake as he fought every attempt by lawyers representing Chadee and his men to have the sentence lifted, said whenever a trial lasts as long as this one did, just over two years, “it is difficult to get a conviction.”
Maharaj said when three senior counsels are retained to prosecute a trial it immediately “gives the jury the impression that your case is bad.”
He said the length of the trial would have “put a lot of pressure on the jury to remember details and the impact of evidence.” It would also have been difficult “for a judge to remember the force of the evidence,” Maharaj said.
Maharaj said the jury was human and “they go home, they have their own lives, they have their own problems, so it’s difficult for them.” But he said he fully supports “trial by jury because they assess evidence and that has been the basis of a fair trial.”
The former AG said even if there were no jury and three judges had to hear a trial like the Naipaul- Coolman trial where the case lasts over two years, “it would still be a problem.”
He contends that “if a proper assessment is done, the result would be that cases should be done in a quicker time.”
His suggestion is that criminal trials should have a free flow of evidence.
In the Naipaul-Coolman trial the jury was put out of the courtroom several times for voir dires to be heard.
Maharaj said the criminal procedure should be changed.
He is suggesting that there be a case management conference before the start of criminal trials in which all objections in law are raised by attorneys and decided by the judge.
This, he said, would clear the way so that when the trial starts “and the jury is empanelled you have a free flow of evidence which will not take two years.”
Initially, it was expected that the trial would have lasted between four and seven months, but it eventually went for over two years.
It started in March 2014 and ended in May 2016.
COST TO THE COUNTRY
According to an official close to the case, the cost of the trial was about
$60 million.
UNOFFICIAL COST OF TRIAL
STATE PROSECUTORS—$7M
DEFENCE & INSTRUCTING ATTORNEYS (Legal Aid, etc)—$15M
DNA, POLICE, DPP,
PREPARATION FOR TRIAL—$7M
COST FOR UPKEEP OF
PRISONERS—$30M
ABOUT THE ABDUCTION
On the evening of December 19, 2006, Vindra Naipaul-Coolman was abducted outside her Lange Park home as she pulled into her driveway after a day at work. A ransom was demanded for her safe release. Some of the ransom money was paid ($122,000) but she was not freed. The mystery of what happened to the businesswoman remains unsolved as her body was never found.
Shortly after her kidnapping the public interest was piqued as three members of the Jamaat Al-Muslimen confessed to their role in the incident. They claimed Naipaul was murdered and her body dismembered.
They claimed that on the night of December 19, they were “given specific instructions’ to kidnap Naipaul-Coolman and take her to a house in La Puerta, Diego Martin. A ransom demand was to have been made which they expected would have been paid. But the kidnapping was botched when one of the kidnappers fired a shot which struck the businesswoman in the breast.
It is reported the businesswoman was raped by one of her abductors, and died two days after being kidnapped.
The country heard, during the trial, that in a state of panic the abductors decided to dismember her body. It is reported that Naipaul-Coolman’s body was cut into pieces on a pool table with a power saw, then wrapped in a cloth and taken to central Trinidad where it was disposed of.
Acting on a tip-off, police searched a pond at Depot Road, in Longdenville, for an entire week from January 16 to 20, but her body was never found. Naipaul-Coolman’s father, Naipaul Sukdeo, pleaded with the kidnappers to give information to the police to help find his daughter’s remains so that the family could get closure. It never happened. His health deteriorated and he died in November 2010, four years after his daughter was kidnapped and murdered.
During the trial the court heard that Naipaul-Coolman’s husband, Rennie Coolman, was considered a suspect by members of the Special Anti Crime Unit. Coolman, however, maintained that he played no role in his wife’s abduction and murder. He admitted, however, to paying $75,000 to a woman, who claimed to be from the Office of the DPP, for him not to be wrongfully charged and prosecuted for murder.