Bisram to get ‘speedy’ trial though paper committal

Bisram with a slight smile as he leaves the courthouse on Monday

Whim Magistrate Renita Singh on Monday ruled that she will conduct the Marcus Bisram matter via way of paper committal; which would see him having a speedy trial in accordance with the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice which ruled that once he extradited to Guyana, his trial should be done with undue delay.

Today the Magistrate noted that the previous Senior Magistrate did not make a note of his ruling that the court would proceed by way of paper committal. However, both the defense and prosecution agreed that the decision was nevertheless arrived at by Magistrate Moore.

A site visit would be conducted, photographs and video evidence would be tendered for the magistrate’s consideration where needs are, the respective persons who submitted them into the file would be called upon to explain which those pieces of evidence depict, the court was told today.

Today’s decision in the court broke the weeks of deadlock between the defense and prosecution on the how the matter should be going forward which ultimately resulted in the Preliminary Inquiry of Marcus Bisram being unable to start and which saw the defense accused the prosecution of deliberately delaying the process and magistrate shopping.

Both the defense and prosecution appeared pleased with the ruling of the Magistrate today compared to previous appearances where the sides kept going at each other in their respective interests. In her brief ruling today at the Whim Magistrate Court she opted to continue by taking both the defense and state into consideration.
Magistrate Singh ruled that the state’s star witness will be allowed to testify, a site visit will be executed and statements and depositions will be submitted. This was after she dubbed the proceedings as a fresh one since her review of the case jacket saw no record of a specific ruling by Magistrate Alex Moore who recused himself from the case.

The defense team comprising of Attorney Sanjeev Datadin and Dexter Todd had argued on the previous court date that Moore had made a ruling that the matter will proceed by way of Paper Committal and that his ruling still stands. Todd, however, had asked Magistrate Singh to check the case jacket to show that the ruling was recorded. It wasn’t after she reviewed it.

State Prosecutrix Stacy Goodings in her arguments were leading to the path of a Preliminary Inquiry where she had mentioned that at least 18 witnesses were expected to be called including one which is being referred to as the star witness.  The matter is set to continue on February 13 2020.