The trial of Leon Duncan yesterday heard that the person with whom he allegedly said he had left the Cool Square Hotel, on the morning Imtiaz Roopnarine was murdered there, had a different story.
Detective Sergeant Rodwell Sarrabo yesterday testified that he was present at a confrontation between Duncan and two women who accounted for his whereabouts the night before Roopnarine was shot and killed.
The allegation against Duncan, called ‘Leon James’ and ‘Whistle,’ is that on January 24, 2013, at the Cool Square Hotel, West Ruimveldt, Georgetown, he murdered Roopnarine called ‘Bobby,’ in the course or furtherance of a robbery.
He has pleaded not guilty. He is on trial before Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry and a 12-member mixed jury at the High Court in Georgetown.
Sarrabo said that when questioned by Detective Suraj Singh about his whereabouts for the night of January 23 and the following morning, Duncan claimed that during the night he went to the Edge Nightclub and while there he met an old girlfriend, Tiana Cumberbatch, who was in the company of her friend, Tameshia Tiffany Glasgow.
The witness said that this is also what they had been told by both women.
Sarrabo said that as the police had also been told by Duncan, Cumberbatch and Glasgow also related that after spending some time at the Edge, the accused and Cumberbatch then left, informing Glasgow that they were going to the Cool Square Hotel to spend the night together.
The court heard from Sarrabo that Cumberbatch told investigators she and her ex-boyfriend did go to Cool Square, where they spent the night and that the following morning about 4:15, she called Glasgow to come with a taxi to pick her up from Cool Square, which she said Glasgow did.
Unlike what the accused had told investigators however, Sarrabo said that Cumberbatch related that she and Duncan did not leave the hotel together.
Sarrabo said the woman told police that while she left in the taxi with Glasgow, Duncan remained at the hotel’s premises.
The witness said that the woman told police that when she left, Duncan was speaking to the security guard at the hotel.
Singh had earlier testified that during a confrontation with Glasgow, the woman had related that when she arrived with the taxi to collect Cumberbatch, she had enquired about Duncan and was told by Cumberbatch that he was speaking with the guard, after which they drove off.
The court heard from Sarrabo that Cumberbatch also told investigators during the confrontation, in the presence of Duncan, that after learning from the news that someone had been shot at the same hotel that morning, she later contacted Duncan, who told her that he wanted to turn himself over to the police.
Sarrabo said that according to Cumberbatch, she asked Duncan why he wanted to turn himself in and he told her, it was because he heard that his name had been calling in “some murder.”
Sarrabo said Cumberbatch further told police that Duncan had told her that if the police should question her, she must tell them that she and he had left the hotel together.
Detective Assistant Superintendent of Police Mitchel Caesar had earlier testified that during an interview, Duncan told him that after he and Cumberbatch spent the night together at Cool Square, they both left in a taxi early the next morning.
Sarrabo said that after Cumberbatch related her story, Detective Singh cautioned Duncan who remained silent.
Testifying also yesterday was pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh who give Roopnarine’s cause of death as gun-shot injuries to the spine.
The trial continues today.
The state’s case is being presented by prosecutors Stacy Goodings, Orinthia Schmidt and Tuanna Hardy. Meanwhile, Duncan is being represented by attorney Mark Waldron.
