Man on trial for murder

SHARLENE RAMPERSAD

ALTHOUGH labourer Dalip “Jackrobe” Rambharose died of a heart attack in 2003, Jimmy Huggins went on trial yesterday in the High Court, San Fernando for his murder. The state’s case is that Rambharose, 53, died on May 17 of the heart attack caused by him being chopped during a robbery.

Huggins went before Justice Carla Brown-Antoine and a jury of 12 and two alternates, with Rekha Ramjit, Kiran Panday and Hazel Castro his defence attorneys. Prosecutor Stacy Laloo-Chong told the jury that Huggins and another man went to Rambharose’s mini-mart on May 2, 2003, in Sobo Circular Road, La Brea.

She said Rambharose was trying to close the door to the business place when Huggins and the other man forced it open and Huggins dealt the businessman a chop which severed one of his fingers.

The victim’s wife Sumintra Rambharose was at the house during the incident. She testified that on the night of the incident, she and her husband were lying in a hammock in their garage when Rambharose got up to go lock up the mini-mart. Sumintra said she heard a young boy calling out to her in front of the mini-mart.

She said she got up from the hammock and went to sell the child snacks.

When the boy left, Rambharose who was by the door leading into the mini-mart, tried to pull it shut when someone pulled it from outside.

Sumintra testified that she heard her husband shout, “bandit!” and seeing two men in the doorway.

Laloo-Chong told the court that when Huggins was arrested on May 12, 2005, he gave two statements to police. In the first, the court heard, he said: “Boss me and meh partner Randy went to rob the man by the mini-mart, I fired a chop, he get a cut on his hand and he dead from a blood clot.”

Later that day, Laloo-Chong said Huggins told police, “I guilty for robbing the man and maliciously wounding the man but I didn’t murder him.” The trial continues today.