Roseau, Dominica (TDN) A Dominica magistrate has taken the unusual position of preventing murder charges to be read to five police officers arrested for the murder of Joshua Etienne while in their custody.
Local magistrate Bernard Pacquette himself a former police officer denied the reading of the charges when the men appeared in court this past Thursday,
The magistrate’s decision has come under severe criticism from Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Evelina Baptiste, who described it as being “wrong in law” and indicated that legal maneuvers will continue to rectify the matter.
Magistrate Pacquette denied the DPP the right to read the charges to the five defendants after their team of lawyers claimed they had filed for a Judicial Review in the matter at the High Court.
Pacquette was of the view that he could not act until the High Court rules on the matter, a position criticized by the DPP. According to Baptiste, the filing in the High Court should not preclude a hearing in the lower court and that this was the first time that such a ruling had been given in a Dominican court.
The five officers, Sergeant Hayden Morgan, Corporal Gemma Louis, Constables Martin Seaman, Devin Challenger and Orlan Vigille, meanwhile were said to be remaining confined at Police Headquarters until the High Court rules.
The officers were arrested just days after the lifeless body of 49 year old Joshua Etienne was discovered in a Police cell where he was held overnight for allegedly having ammunition in his possession.
At least three of the accused officers have had previous legal issues where government agreed to pay thousands of dollars in penalties. In one case Constable Martin Seaman was involved in the shooting of an unarmed man after he was cornered hiding under a bed. The man lost his leg and the government was successfully sued by local lawyer Joshua Francis and agreed to pay over a hundred thousand dollars in damages to the victim.
The most recent murder case has attracted much public scrutiny and drawn attention to the Dominica Police use of excessive force and the routine beatings of prisoners in their custody.
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