None of the almost 20 witnesses who are still to give evidence in the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) stolen transformer case showed up on Thursday and this resulted in the magistrate setting November 29 as the peremptory date.
Magistrate Fazil Azeez advised the prosecutor to either ensure that witnesses are present on that date or close his case.
The defendants: Ganesh Ramlall, the owner of Regent Multiplex mall along with Davin Jones and Rajesh Sanchara were all represented for Thursday’s proceedings.
Several names of witnesses, including policemen, were called but none of the persons came forward.
So far, Sydney Bell, who is in charge of the GPL workshop, has testified. During his testimony last month, the man had said that there were parts of his statement that were inaccurate. He had told the court that the evidence that he gave during his cross-examination was correct.
The trial commenced earlier this year after months of delays.
On January 28 last year the three men were charged with stealing the transformer.
It is alleged that between October 27 and November 17, 2008 the trio conspired with other persons to steal one KVA transformer belonging to GPL valued at $4,140,000.
The transformer was stolen from the GPL Sophia location some time during the last two months of 2008 as according to the company’s Managing Director Bharrat Dindyal, an audit had been done in October and at that time all the generators the company had in stock were intact.
It was only when a city businessman took three transformers to be tested by the company that it was discovered that transformers had been stolen.
The three transformers had been sprayed over.
Following that discovery the company checked its stock and found that two heavy duty generators had also been stolen and information received led to one transformer being found installed at the then newly built Regent Multiplex mall at the corner of Wellington and Regent streets.
The defence lawyer in the case is Hukumchand.
