Obeah in court

(Trinidad Express)- The names of a magistrate and police prosecutor were written on paper and stuffed into a powder-filled bottle and left outside the Princes Town Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

It was part of a suspected act of witchcraft at the courthouse. Earlier in the day, police and court staff found a yellow powder sprinkled along the pavement and leading onto the court compound.

A black cloth bag containing a substance that appeared to be burnt wood was also found in the vicinity.
It is believed the items were part of an “obeah” ritual done by a criminal defendant, who hoped for supernatural intervention that his court case would be dismissed.

One of the cases listed involved three persons from Moruga, a village known to have several practising “obeah men”.
The names of Senior First Court Magistrate Indrani Cedeno and Sgt Zamsheed Mohammed were found in the bottle.
But Sgt Mohammed was unperturbed by the act of alleged sorcery.

“I’m not bothered by the incident, and it would not prevent me from doing my job,” he said.
He said this was not the first black-magic attempt aimed at him.

Mohammed said he had showed up in court and found cloves of garlic on his chair.
He said the incident did not disrupt the court proceedings, and the items were cleared by the court’s maintenance staff.