Newsday Editorial, www.newsday.co.tt

OUR SYSTEM of justice requires that in all criminal trials the prosecution must prove its case against the accused beyond all reasonable doubt. That burden and quality of proof is essential since what is at stake in such trials is the freedom and, in cases of murder, the life of the person charged. It is necessary also because, again in our system, the person charged must be considered innocent until proven guilty which means that he or she has the right to remain perfectly silent.

It is clear to us that this vital principle in our criminal justice system was upheld in the not-guilty verdict delivered yesterday by the 12-member jury in the Dhanraj Singh murder trial which lasted 15 days before Justice Paula Mae Weekes. Whatever personal views we may have about the guilt or innocence of the accused, it is absolutely essential that the principles of justice prevail in the deliberations of our courts. As defence attorney Karl Hudson-Phillips QC pointed out, it was the duty of the jury to determine the case strictly on the quantum and quality of the evidence produced by the prosecution at the trial and nothing else.

What was that evidence? The case against the former UNC minister rested almost exclusively on the testimony of Elliot Hypolite, an accomplice in the killing of Hansraj Sumairsingh, chairman of the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation, who was shot to death at his Mayaro beach house in December 1999. Hypolite who was initially charged for the murder of Sumairsingh, together with Dhanraj Singh, was subsequently granted a nolle prosequi and conditional immunity by the State to testify against the former Government minister. This is not an uncommon strategy, it has been used by the prosecution in several other countries where high-profile persons, often major underworld figures and crime bosses, have been charged and it is not unprecedented in Trinidad and Tobago. In the trial of Dole Chadee and eight others for murder some years ago, accomplices Clint Huggins and Leroy Morris became witnesses for the State.

The difference in the Dhanraj Singh trial, however, was not only the uncorroborated nature of Hypolite’s testimony but also the many discrepancies and inconsistencies which the defence exposed in his testimony. It was quite proper for the jury to be warned to judge the case on the facts as they came out in court and not on gossip they might have heard in the market place. It was necessary also for them to resist the temptation to accept insinuations made to prejudice their minds and, instead, to rely strictly on the pertinent evidence. Surveying this evidence, it would seem to us that the jury made the right decision. It could hardly have convinced them, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Singh was guilty as charged, particularly since the accused himself opted to testify in his own defence, submitting himself to cross examination by English Queen’s Counsel Sir Timothy Cassel who led the prosecution team. The jury, in the final analysis, were confronted by many uncertainties in the State’s case and, in giving the benefit of the doubt to the accused as they are required to do, had no choice in coming to the verdict which they did. Whatever we may think of the stormy political career of Dhanraj Singh, we must accept the fact that his trial was not only free and fair but also that the critical principles which undergird our system of justice were upheld.