Trial for the murder of Rupert Berney Appasamy |20 May 2022
Court gets evidence from one returning and two new witnesses
During hearing day nine yesterday of the ongoing trial for the murder of ongoing trial for the murder of Rupert Berney Appasamy, the court received evidence from three witnesses, varying from call logs, data analysis and personal testimonies.
The two accused in the case which is being presided over by Justice Mohan Niranjit Burhan are Sindu Parekh and Ken Jean-Charles who are being represented by lawyers Tony Juliette and Olivier Chang-Leng respectively, while Corrine Rose and Georges Thachet are the prosecution lawyers
The first witness to appear before the court was a representative of local telecommunication company Cable and Wireless who returned from Wednesday’s hearing to provide further call logs evidence, relating to several mobile phones seized as evidence in the case.
As it was the case on Wednesday, the witness provided call log evidence which allows seeing who the suspected person called the most frequently, spoke with the longest, or even when they started or stopped making phone calls to the individual.
Once again, most of the call logs received from some of the seized mobile phones emphasised on one particular accused in the case, in relation to a certain period of time, to be exact, between September 1 and 21, 2021.
The second witness on the stand yesterday was someone connected to the second accused, namely Parekh and she told the court that she knew the deceased, since they attended the same school.
She told the court that on one particular day in August, Appasamy entered her work place at the Eden Island where she offered him R500.
She added that on another day, Appasamy returned with a hand-written note, and asked her to type and print it for him.
The witness told the court that due to her busy schedule, she refused and asked him to leave.
She added that on several occasions, she witnessed his presence in the vicinity of her workplace, but did not interact with him in any way.
She further told the court that she decided to seek legal advice, fearing that Appasamy had other negative intentions.
She said she also informed Parekh about the situation since she was a single mother and did not feel safe about whatever she was noticing, especially when the accused to whom she has been in an up-and-down relationship with is at sea.
The third witness yesterday was from the Financial Crime Investigation Unit within the Seychelles Police who told the court that she received a request from the case’s investigating officer to carry out an analysis of data, including phone calls, in relation to a murder case.
The officer told the court that the time frame she received was between September 1 and 30, 2021.
Based on her analysis, the officer told the court that she noticed a regular pattern in the calls between the two accused in the case, placing the first accused a middle man in whatever was happening.
She said, it was Jean-Charles who was the link between the second accused and other individuals, including those already involved in the case.
In her report, she stated that based on analysis, it was observed that as of September 8, 2021, it was observed that there were several phone calls – 17 in total – between the two accused.
This, she said, indicated that they were very well acquainted.
Cross-examining the evidence, defence attorney Tony Juliette noted that the report of the analysis was purely guided and directed down that path to establish what the investigation wanted.
He explained that 17 calls, as opposed to 46 – between Jean-Charles and a former accused in the case – purely shows that the investigation was targeting his client, since the report does not state that they were well acquainted as it does in the case of his client.
In her reply, the witness maintained her argument that her specific task was to do an analysis based on the pattern in contacts between the two accused, and not specifically between them and other individuals.
The case will continue today.
Roland Duval