2 San Fernando men lose appeal in burger-cart vendor killing

THE Court of Appeal has dismissed the appeal of two San Fernando men who had been convicted of killing a burger cart vendor at his Princes Town home in 2006.

However, since one of the men has since died, and his appeal died with him.

His accomplice, Nigel Charles, will serve out the rest of his sentence.

Charles and his accomplice Marlon Hope were convicted by a San Fernando jury of felony murder in 2019. The rule of felony murder applies when someone is murdered in the commission of a crime. In this case, the crime was robbery.

They were each sentenced to 14 years and 11 months by Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas.

Hope died in prison in October 2022.

One of their main grounds of appeal, advanced by their attorneys Jagdeo Singh and Michael Rooplal, was that the trial judge erred when he put to the jury the offence of felony murder as an alternative to murder.

Singh argued that the Criminal Procedure Act did not include felony murder and the onus was on the prosecution to elect for which offence they were filing an indictment.

In their ruling, Appeal Court judges Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Mark Mohammed and Malcolm Holdip held that the trial judge did have the jurisdiction to leave felony murder as an option to the jury for their consideration. The other grounds of appeal raised were also dismissed, although the judges said the judge did not give the standard direction to the jury on circumstantial evidence introduced in the case, but the jury was sufficiently guided on the issue.

Chatoor, a pensioner, was shot in the bedroom of his home at St John’s Village on July 7, 2006. He died in hospital almost three weeks later.

He and his family were asleep when two men broke down their front door. The men, who were armed with guns, announced a hold-up. They went into Chatoor’s bedroom and shot him. Before escaping in a car, the men robbed the family of electronics, jewellery and money.

Chatoor’s son had identified Hope as one of his father’s killers.

Police searched Hope’s home in Cocoyea on the day of the killing and found jewellery and other items the family identified, Charles was arrested a week later and some of the stolen jewellery was also found in his possession.

Both men testified at their trial, asserting they were elsewhere when the killing took place and the case against them was fabricated.