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Vendor recounts seeing husband’s lifeless body in boat in Demerara River
A relatively calm Ashmoon Khan was yesterday summoned to testify in the trial of Marlon Callender. Callender is accused of killing Khan’s reputed husband Envil Pollard called “Rastaman”, who was shot and killed on January 29, 2015 at Pritipaul Wharf, McDoom, East Bank Demerara.
MURDER ACCUSED: Marlon Callender
MURDERED:
Envil Pollard
Reports indicate that the 45-year-old fisherman and father of six was fatally shot in his boat allegedly by Callender who was at the time a security guard attached to Pritipaul Singh Investments Inc. (PSI), Mc Doom, East Bank Demerara.
The shooting occurred in proximity of the entity’s wharf.
Pollard was reportedly shot to the neck and groin with a shotgun. Based on the prosecution, an unarmed security guard attached to the establishment had asked Pollard to remove from the wharf area but he refused. The prosecution is contending that thereafter, Callender who was an armed security guard attached to the company, discharged several bullets at Pollard, resulting in his demise.
Representing Callender, who has denied the murder charge, is Attorney-at-law Everston Lammy-Singh, while Prosecutors Lisa Cave and Mandel Moore are appearing for the state.
During her time in the witness box, Khan told the court that Pollard, with whom she shared six children, was a fisherman who used a small boat to ply his trade at Pritipaul Wharf.
According to her, after her husband finished catching fish, he would give them to her to sell in the Stabroek Market. Khan said that on January 29, 2015, she and her husband left home for work using public transportation. She recalled that some time later in the morning, she received a phone call from a gentleman who informed her that her husband was shot.
“I started hollering and I went to the Ruimveldt Police Station to make a report. Then I went by Kaieteur News because I needed someone to publish the story.”
The witness said that police ranks escorted her to the wharf where she saw her husband lying in his boat in a slouching position with his head on the bench. She added that the boat was in the Demerara River. “(Her husband) was not moving. I started to cry when I see him. I shake him… He had holes in his left side neck and left side thigh.” The woman further told the court that her husband’s body had several “fine fine” holes from which blood was flowing.
She said that blood was also flowing from his mouth. The court heard from Khan that the following day she went to the Georgetown Public Hospital Mortuary where she identified the remains of her husband to the pathologist who later performed a post mortem examination.
She revealed that her husband was buried on March 8, 2015 at Best Village, West Coast Demerara.
Also testifying yesterday was Police Corporal Detective Carlson Rockcliffe, who is stationed at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Headquarters, Eve Leary, Georgetown and attached to the Crime Laboratory. Corporal Rockcliffe related that on the day in question, he was performing duties when a request was made for a police photographer to visit an alleged murder scene at Pritipaul Wharf, McDoom, East Bank Demerara.
As a result of the request, the police corporal said that he equipped himself with a digital camera and left for the location where he met Lance Corporal Hale whom, he said, gave him certain instructions.
The police corporal testified that he saw the motionless body of Pollard lying in a boat in the Demerara River.
“As a result, I took several photographic exposures of the boat and body. The body was then placed on the wharf where I observed several wounds on the body suspected to be caused by gunshot and a reddish substance suspected to be blood.”
Corporal Rockcliffe thereafter identified and explained 16 coloured photographs, which were later tendered and admitted as exhibits in the trial. This trial is continuing.
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