Zamani Khan, a 20-year-old carpenter of Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara, was on Thursday remanded to prison shortly after he appeared before Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson for allegedly wounding a man and hijacking his car.
Khan pleaded not guilty to the charge of robbery under arms when he appeared at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
The magistrate informed him that he also has an unlawful wounding charge against him to which he will be allowed to enter a plea on his next court appearance.
He denied that on June 21 at Hague, West Coast Demerara, he used a glass bottle to rob Fazil Baksh of a car and a cell phone valued over $2M.
However, Khan stated that he was not the person who had robbed Baksh.
He said that on the night in question, he had attended a party where he had consumed a quantity of alcohol. He said that afterwards he had hired Baksh, a taxi-driver, to take him home but that another man had also entered the car.
“He (Baksh) deh sleeping in de car,” Khan noted.
He went on to say that he stepped out of the car to urinate and it was while doing so that the other man attacked and robbed Baksh of the car and cell phone.
He noted that he did not know the other man’s name.
However, Prosecutor Munilall Seetaram refuted Khan’s statements. He said that on the night in question, Khan had hit Baksh over the head with a glass bottle, robbed him of his cell phone and hijacked his car.
Seetaram objected to Khan’s bail application when he suggested it on the grounds that Baksh had sustained injuries as a result of the attack.
The magistrate subsequently ordered that Khan be remanded to prison and transferred the matter to the Leonora Magistrate’s Court for June 30.
