The elder brother of a teenage bandit who was killed after he shot a police officer in Marabella appeared in court yesterday on robbery charges stemming from the incident.
The 16-year-old school boy, who was cannot be identified because of his age, was accompanied by his father when he appeared in the San Fernando Magistrates Court yesterday. He was granted $30,000 bail.
The charge stemmed from an incident last Thursday when PC Anand Ram was shot by Issac Simmons, 15, when he responded to a report of a robbery at Gopaul Lands. Simmons was subsequently killed after being shot several times by the police.
Shortly after the matter was called in the First Court yesterday, Senior Magistrate Cherril-Anne Antoine cleared the courtroom because the teen accused was a juvenile. The charge alleged that the teen accused on December 14, together with other people armed with a firearm, cutlass and knife robbed Farouk Hosein of several items, including two gold chains, a gold pendant, tie pins, Playstation, a recorder, video games and an assortment of alcoholic beverages.
Represented by duty counsel, Alysa Habib, the teenager admitted to having charges of robbery, possession of firearm, possession of ammunition and housebreaking and larceny pending. He was also placed on probation until the age of 18 on a marijuana possession matter.
Habib said the teenager was a Form Five student and he wanted to attend his brother’s funeral.
The magistrate approved the teenager’s father as his surety, which meant he would be released in the care of his father.
However, the magistrate attached conditions to the bail that he was not to go out in public without his father and he had to return home from school at 3 pm.
The matter was adjourned to January 17.
In the same court, Simmons’ matter for receiving stolen articles in July, was also called. Asked by the magistrate whether he had a death certificate, the father said, “Right now his mother running up and down to handle the death certificate. I just come to notify.”
The magistrate then asked the father to bring the original death certificate on March 2, but the father asked for a closer date. The magistrate said she was adjourning it to a longer date to allow the family time to settle down. In response, the father said, “I don’t want to grieve I just want to bury my child...We done settle already.” The magistrate then adjourned the matter to February 23.