“If yuh go a crab dance, yuh gon get mud,” Pro-secutor Judith Gildharie-Mursalin told the jury in the Cyon Collier murder trial yesterday, saying that the accused is facing the consequences for the role he played in the robbery which resulted in the death of Chandrapaul Persaud.
As the trial continued before Justice Winston Patterson, Gildharie-Mursalin noted that Collier, known as ‘Picture Boy,’ admitted that he was in another man’s house, where police say they found him with weapons, including an AK-47 stolen from the army. She said the suggestions by Collier’s lawyer Lyndon Amsterdam that the weapons belonged to wanted man Anthony Charles, called ‘Kussum,’ who was later gunned down by police, or the owner of the house, were a ‘blame game’ defence that is as old as creation.
Gildharie-Mursalin further noted that Amsterdam also said that all the prosecution had brought forward was the wife of the deceased, Nazeeme Ishack, who put Collier in her home on the night in question after she identified him during an ID parade and also the fact that the accused was found with the AK-47, which a ballistic expert placed at the scene as well.
“What more do you want members of the jury?” she asked, adding that the information provided had been sufficient. “The prosecution has discharged its burden through the evidence of its witnesses, who have linked ‘Picture Boy’ to the death of ‘Kero man,’ [Persaud]” she said.
It is alleged that Collier murdered Persaud on September 30, 2006. Persaud was shot by one of three gunmen who launched an attack on him outside his Non Pareil, East Coast Demerara home, moments after he drove his vehicle into the yard.
Gildharie-Mursalin also noted that Amsterdam claimed that the police were only attempting to “nail” his client, but she said that had they done so, Collier would have been deemed the “trigger man” and not the individual taking money and jewellery from Ishack. “They came there on three bicycles, which they left behind… and that was not all they left when they drove off in the family’s car. They left 34-year-old Kero Man’s body, bullet-riddled, lying in a pool of his own blood,” she said.
Reference was also made to Amsterdam’s comment about the police acting on information given to them via telephone, which led to them finding Collier. He had said if officers go to people’s homes on such information, then “we are in serious trouble in this country.” In response, Gildharie-Mursalin stated, “We have to be thankful that they act on that kind of information because if they do not then we would be in trouble because the information they received was in connection with ‘Picture Boy,’ who was a wanted man.”
She went on to say that at the time of Collier’s arrest, 30 odd members of the Joint Services had to surround that house at 5am in the morning, although Amsterdam had said that the accused opened the door meekly. The prosecutor stated that he surrendered only because he knew his “game was up.” “If he had come out with guns blazing, it would have been suicide,” she said.
Collier, Gildharie-Mursalin said, was a part of the gang that reigned terror on the Persaud family, leaving a man dead. She told jury members that they should not become distracted from their purpose, for they have been chosen from all walks of life to be the judges of the facts presented in the case.
Justice Patterson will sum up the evidence of the case today after which members of the jury will begin deliberation.
