The high-profile murder trial of former supermarket executive Vindra Naipaul-Coolman has been adjourned to next week because of a dusty courtroom at the Hall of Justice. The issue of excess dust in the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court arose at the start of yesterday’s hearing before presiding judge Malcolm Holdip, when an alternate juror said the conditions were affecting her asthma condition.
Even lawyers seemed to be affected by the situation, with defence attorney Wayne Sturge blaming the dust for his incessant coughing during previous hearing this week. After hearing the complaints, Holdip agreed to adjourn the case to Monday to allow the Judiciary’s maintenance staff to sanitise the courtroom. Yesterday’s adjournment due to a medical condition of a juror was one of several interruptions which have taken place since the trial resumed after the opening of the 2014/2015 law term last month. Over the past three weeks, State prosecutors have managed to call only two witnesses in the case, retired Deputy Police Commissioner (DCP) Mervyn Richardson and senior homicide detective Supt Jayson Forde.
Since the trial began in late March, almost half of the State’s 74 witnesses, most of the police officers who investigated her abduction and eventual murder, have given evidence. Naipaul-Coolman, the former CEO of her family’s supermarket chain Xtra Foods, was kidnapped in front of her Radix Road, Lange Park, Chaguanas, home, on December 19, 2006. A $122,000 ransom was paid by her family but she was not released. Although the businesswoman’s body has never been found by police, prosecutors have claimed she was held captive at a house in Upper La Puerta Avenue, Diego Martin, for several days before she was killed, dismembered and temporarily buried in a remote hillside location in the community.