Fingerprints tendered into evidence

FINGERPRINT impressions taken from Dr Eddie Koury’s headless body which matched those which were taken from his United States resident alien card (green card) were yesterday presented as evidence to the jury in the trial of the five men charged with his murder.

The evidence formed the formal admissions presented by the prosecution and agreed to by the defence at the trial which is being heard by Justice Malcolm Holdip in the Port of Spain High Court. It is the first time Koury’s death has been proven.

The formal admissions were documentary evidence of the fingerprint impressions taken by police officers who took photographs of Koury’s green card and pieces of “friction ridge skin” from his fingertips and the evidence of the analysis done on the impressions.

Koury’s headless body was found on September 23, 2005, at Bolivar Trace, Palmiste, Longdenville, two days after he was abducted from his business place at ISKO Enterprises Ltd, an import and distribution company based in the Macoya industrial estate.

Also yesterday, the evidence Cpl Dianne Burgess gave at the magistrates’ court was also read out to the jury.

Burgess died in Barbados in August 2013.

In her evidence, she said she went to ISKO Enterprises on September 21, 2005, where she saw blood on the floor and bloody footprints. She also took two ISKO employees to the Tunapuna police station and later when to Orange Grove Road where she saw a car with blood on the trunk.

Seated in the car was taxi driver Ramsaran Samlal who told her, according to her evidence, he was blindfolded and struck on the head and put in the back seat by four men.

In her evidence, she said he was disoriented and his face and wrists were bruised. She also witnessed the processing of the car by police fingerprint experts.

Burgess, in cross examination at the magistrates’ court, testified that she pulled over a car on September 22, 2005 during a police exercise in Macoya.

In the car was Gwendolyn Ottley, the mother of Shawn James, one of the five men accused of killing Koury.

Burgess denied slapping the woman or arresting her as a suspect in the murder. She said police had information and they were questioning people. She also said Ottley was not arrested or kidnapped, nor was she threatened with charges if her son did not sign a statement.

The case resumes on Monday.

With the admission of the formal evidence, prosecutor Nigel Pilgrim informed the judge that the prosecution had presented half of its witnesses in the case.

On trial are James, Caleb Donaldson, Murray, Terry Moore and Robert Franklyn.