Anthony Gloster, at whose Diego Martin home police claimed businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman was murdered, did not provide police with a concrete alibi for the day she was kidnapped.
“I would have been liming or hustling around the neighbourhood, painting, toting water or things like that. I cannot really say cause that time was long,” Gloster told police when he was initially arrested, three weeks after Naipaul-Coolman was snatched in front of her home in Chaguanas.
The claim and Gloster’s responses to several other questions related to the crime were revealed yesterday by Insp Creighton Hudson, the latest witness in the trial of Gloster, his two bothers and nine of their neighbours as the trial resumed yesterday
According to Hudson, during the interview on January 7, 2007, he asked Gloster to give a daily account of his activities in the previous month.
Gloster said he spent most of the time home with his family except for one day when he went to a mall to purchase a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.
When questioned over his knowledge of Naipaul-Coolman’s kidnapping, Gloster claimed he only heard about it from his relatives and on television news reports.
“People all over were talking and saying they kidnapped a woman somewhere in Chaguanas and I remember meh grandmother saying ‘Thank God we not rich’,” Gloster, who claimed he only visited central Trinidad once in his life, said.
Gloster also denied he heard his friends, who he is on trial with, talking about the incident.
“I don’t think any of my friends would put down work like that,” Gloster said.
Hudson completed his evidence relatively quickly as the non-contentious statement were not the subject of lengthy cross-examination.
Naipaul-Coolman was abducted on December 19, 2006. A $122,000 ransom was paid by her family but she was not released and her body has never been found.
Prosecutors are contending that the businesswoman was held captive at Gloster’s home at Upper La Puerta, Diego Martin, before she was killed, dismembered and her body buried.
Before the case was adjourned by presiding Judge Malcolm Holdip yesterday afternoon, prosecutors were able to call on another witness to testify.
In his brief evidence Insp Sheldon David detailed how he arrested accused Ronald Armstrong, months after Gloster and several other of his friends were initially questioned and released by officers.
David said on May 10, 2007, as he was on patrol in Diego Martin, he saw Armstrong walking at the side of the road.
He said he informed Armstrong homicide detectives were looking for him as they believed he had information which could assist in their investigation.
“I told him about his rights to have a family member or legal representative present and he said ‘That's alright let's go’,” David said.
His testimony ended where he handed over Armstrong to his colleagues at the Arouca Police Station. David was not cross-examined by defence attorneys.
Prosecutors are expected to call another witness when the trial resumes today.