Sean Luke murder accused claims he concocted statement

RICHARD Chatoo – one of two men on trial for the brutal murder of six-year-old Sean Luke – on Friday denied any involvement in the boy’s killing in March 2006, saying he “make up a statement” of what happened so he would not be charged by the police.

Chatoo and his cousin, Akeel Mitchell, are before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds in a judge-only trial. He testified on Friday in his defence in which he is alleging the statements were fabricated by the police and adduced as a result of oppression, trickery, force and inducement.

Mitchell has stayed silent and has only called one witness in his defence in which he has advanced an alibi, claiming he was at Chatoo’s home at the time it is alleged they killed Luke.

Testifying for five hours from a virtual court set-up at the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca, Chatoo maintained he “never do nothing.”

He said police told him he would not be charged for Luke’s murder, but would be a witness in the case if he accused Mitchell of the crime. He also said it was for this reason, he consented to having his blood taken for a DNA analysis.

“They seek my consent and I was willing to go because I know I had nothing to do with Sean’s death.”

The results of the DNA tests showed Mitchell’s profile on spermatozoa found on Luke’s underpants, but did not link Chatoo’s DNA to the item of clothing.

Chatoo also admitted he never liked Mitchell and did not like his “vibes” so he was hardly around him.

“ My blood just didn’t take him at all, at all, at all. My blood just didn’t take him.”

Chatoo, now 31, was 16-years-old when he was arrested and charged. Mitchell was weeks shy of age 14.

In both his evidence in chief and in cross-examination, Chatoo said he concocted a story based on what the police told him to say.

He denied Mitchell asking him to have sex, or promising to get him Luke. He said had Mitchell asked him that, he would have told his parents so they could “send him back where he came from.”

Mitchell lived in Morvant with his mother and Chatoo’s uncle. Chatoo lived with his mother and step-father at Orange Valley West, Couva, two houses away from Luke.

On the day Luke went missing – Sunday, March 26, 2006 – Chatoo said an older neighbour, Avinash Baboolal, asked him if he wanted to go fishing with him and another boy from the area, Arvis Pradeep.

Both Baboolal and Pradeep have testified for the prosecution, claiming Chatoo and Mitchell took Luke into the cane field. Neither saw Luke return from the cane field, according to their testimony.

Chatoo said he called his ten-year-old and seven-year-old nephews to go with them on the fishing expedition, while Mitchell did stayed back.

“No one invited Akeel to go fishing,” he said, also saying Baboolal, also, did not like Mitchell.

“Before that day, Avinash used to ask me who is that black boy staying by me. Why allyuh have him they for?”

He claimed Baboolal suggested setting up Mitchell and “send him back where he come from.”

“Avinash never wanted him around. Avinash didn’t like him. I didn’t like him. We never wanted him to come along.”

He said when they left home, he saw Luke playing by his gate, but did not speak to him or invite him to go fishing.

“He didn’t come along on the trip.”

He said on the way to the pond, he saw Avinash heading back in a northerly direction while he and his nephews, along with Pradeep, continued walking to the fishing area.

Chatoo said he thought Baboolal was going back for fishing lines. After staying by the river, “laughing, talking and having fun,” Baboolal returned 45-50 minutes later.

They caught a fish and returned home where he saw Luke’s mother, Pauline, who asked if he had seen Sean.

“I told her I didn’t see him.”

Mitchell, he said, was sitting down next to the shed and he and his nephews went home, insisting repeatedly that Mitchell and Luke did not go with them on the fishing trip or did he and Mitchell take the boy into the cane field.

Chatoo said none of what Baboolal and Pradeep said was true.

He also admitted to giving police a statement about seeing a tall man in white take Luke into the cane field but said he did not witness it himself but was going by what he heard Mitchell, a neighbour named Ms Mayo, and others say.

“I believed the information to be true. I started repeating it. I still believed the information was true. Police came to me and asked if I wanted to give a statement. I vex up to this day I gave that statement. I believe it was true. I just wanted to help.

"People did not want to give statements. I now see why they did not want to give a statement."

His statement was detained, giving a description of the man, what he and Luke were wearing, and the boy’s movements, which included seeing him smile.

Chatoo denied he and Mitchell rehearsed what they were going to tell the police.

“No, we had nothing to discuss about. We didn’t agree to give account of this fictitious man walking out in the cane. We had no reason to make an agreement…”

He said he thought when he gave that statement on March 27, he would get to return home. He said he never told the police he did not see, for himself, a man taking Luke into the cane field, because he would have felt embarrassed “to say I never see that myself.”

“I believed the information so much. Real people were saying it and I wanted them to find that person.”

Chatoo said he was taken to the homicide office at the San Fernando police station and the police officers, Fraser, Garcia and Harripersad, were telling him he was lying about Luke’s death.

“They were talking to me hard and rough and telling me to say what go on.” He said Harripersad took the role of bad cop.

“He was rough. He wanted fast answers.”

He said at the station, the officers would pass and throw words, telling him he was lying.

“I told them I don’t know nothing about the death of Sean.”

He said he was worried, wanted to go home, and didn’t eat or sleep enough while at the station.

“I just wanted to go home. Garcia and dem (sic) would come and throw words asking if I was ready to talk.”

He said the police brought Baboolal and his father into the room he was saying, and the other boy “gave a story,” alleging he played a role in Luke’s murder.

“The story Avinash gave was not true. None of what Avinash said was true.”

He said after this confrontation, Harripersad was telling him how “wicked and evil” he was and how they will go to jail for life and there was no other way out of it.

Chatoo said he was told the only way out for him was to say, he was there holding Luke’s hand when Mitchell buggered the boy and shoved the cane stalk up his anus.

“He say I wouldn’t get charge and won’t go to jail, but will be a witness.”

He also said he was told by Garcia that Baboolal gave the police a statement and if he did the same he would go home too. Chatoo claimed he had to say Mitchell “bull Sean and shove the cane up he bottom and while on the fishing trip, he saw a spot in the cane and took Sean in and I was just holding Sean’s hand.”

“He told me I never do nothing I won’t get charge and I will be a witness.”

Chatoo said he agreed to do what Garcia asked.

“I tell them Sean and Akeel wasn’t on the fishing trip. They weren’t believing me they say I was lying. I took it as the only way out.

“If I make up these things, it was the only way out.”

He said he was told to start his statement by saying Mitchell asked him for sex and he refused but was asked about Luke and he (Chatoo) agreed to “put Sean in place for him.”

“I didn’t know how to set up the story. Dem was the one making up the story, I didn’t know how to start.”

He said he was also told how Luke’s body was found in the cane field, about the blood oozing from his mouth and the cane stalk protruding from his anus.

Chatoo said he was told to “use his intelligence” and “full out a story and make it sound good.”

He said he was given the “whole night” to do so. The next morning, on March 31, he did as he was told.

“I spend the night thinking how to full up the spaces just to go home, because they weren’t believing me and had a witness against me. I just wanted to go home.

“I worked out in my mind what I was going to say…Garcia tell me to spend the whole night so I was ready,” but again insisted he did not know how Luke ended up in the cane field or how the cane stalk was shoved in him.

He also denied saying Mitchell threatened to shoot him with his uncle’s gun if he did not find him someone to have sex with.

“That part came from when Garcia told me how Akeel ask me for sex and I told him ‘no,’ and I agree to put Sean in place. I full up a story as they encourage me to full up a story.

“This is not at all true… All that I make all that up to make it look I was afraid of him.

“None of those things happen…Garcia and them encourage me to fill up a story to accuse Akeel of certain things.”

He said he got the idea to tell police that Luke was beaten up because of the blood that was seen oozing from his mouth when his body was found two days after he went missing.

Chatoo also admitted to returning to Orange Valley with the police to point out where Luke’s clothing was found. He said it was after 6 pm, and Harripersad was looking impatient and was pointing out areas where he and Mitchell supposedly committed the crime, so he agreed to what the officer was saying.

“He point out area in the cane, ask me if there is where Akeel and I took Sean and have sex with him, I say ‘yeah.’ Then he point to another area and ask if ‘is here where Akeel push the cane in Sean,’ and I said ‘yes.’ At this point, I point to a random area and say that is the piece of cane he used.

‘I thought I would have been allowed to go home after I gave the statement.”

He said after that visit, they returned to San Fernando and he “never saw orange Valley again. I never saw my mother again. Eventually I was charged with this crime.”

Chatoo also accused Baboolal of doing “his thing” and palming it off on him. He also said in cross-examination, he knew homosexuality was a sin and was “against the will of God,” but didn’t care about it back then.

Although he claimed he never returned home after March 27, when he was taken in by police, Chatoo said he knew when Luke’s body was found and the police had returned to his home on the evening of March 28. Luke’s body had been found earlier that morning.

He also admitted police recorded his giving of one of his statements on video and if anything was “untoward” it would have been caught on camera.

Chatoo returns on Monday to complete his evidence.

Luke’s body was found on March 28, 2006, in a cane field close to his home. An autopsy revealed he died from internal injuries arising from being sodomised with a cane stalk.

Mitchell and Chatoo are represented by attorneys Mario Merritt, Evans Welch, Kirby Joseph, Randall Raphael, Kelston Pope and Gabriel Hernandez.

Prosecuting are assistant DPP Sabrina Dougdeen-Jaglal, and State attorneys Anju Bhola and Sophia Sandy-Smith.