Self-confessed drug dealer testifies to overhearing accused planning robbery …as trial continues into 2013 Meten-Meer-Zorg murder

Jan 23, 2019 News

A self-confessed drug dealer who says he overheard some men planning to rob his neighbours, was called to testify yesterday in the trial of seven persons, including a woman, who are accused of the September 2013 murder of shopkeeper Zulfikar Namdar.
The murder accused are Allan Dorsett called ‘Beard’, ‘Fat man’, ‘Allen’ or ‘Dada’; Delwayne Croft; Esan Lawrence called ‘Muscle’; Jermain Williams called ‘Yankee’; Andrew Chandler called ‘Sonic’ or ‘Sowie’; Samuel Bacchus called ‘Kirk’ and Cassandra Dorsett also known as ‘Cassandra Singh-Dorsett’.
They have pleaded not guilty to the charge which alleged that on September 10, 2013, they murdered Namdar during the course or furtherance of a robbery.
Attorneys-at-Law Nigel Hughes and Ashley Henry are appearing for Allan Dorsett. Attorney-at-Law Adrian Thompson is appearing for Lawrence, Croft and Cassandra Dorsett, while Attorney-at-Law George Thomas is representing Williams, Chandler and Bacchus.
Presenting the case for the prosecution are State Counsel Tuanna Harding and Abigail Gibbs.
According to previous reports, Namdar was shot and killed after heavily armed gunmen intruded his
Lot 76 Meten-Meer-Zorg, West Coast Demerara home where he resided with his parents.
The gunmen shot at Namdar while he was in the shop he operated, leaving him lying in a pool of blood, before escaping with a large sum of cash and a quantity of jewellery. Namdar was rushed to the Leonora Cottage Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
In his evidence, self-confessed drug dealer Nick Skeete, who said he is a cousin of Allan Dorsett, the number one accused, told the court that he resided about 200 yards from the Namdars. Allan is the husband of the number seven accused, Cassandra Singh-Dorsett.
Skeete, who was deported to Guyana in 2012, fingered the seven accused in the robbery/murder. He, too, was arrested by police as a suspect in the murder, but was later released. According to the witness, he is in protective custody. The court heard from Skeete that he became to know Bacchus, Lawrence and Croft through his cousin, adding that, Chandler was a childhood friend of the Namdars.
Further, he told the jurors that on the evening of September 03, 2013, the male murder accused bought marijuana from him and smoked it under a tree, from where he overheard them

Murdered: Zulfikar Namdar

planning to rob the Namdars.
According to him, on the night of September 10, 2013, he saw Croft, who sported dreadlocks holding a long gun, while the others had smaller firearms. He said that five minutes after the men left his residence he heard gunshots and later learnt that Namdar was killed.
Disclosing that he was arrested six days later in relation to the crime, Skeete said that police held confrontations between him, Croft, Dorsett and Chandler, who all denied involvement in the robbery/murder. After giving his evidence in chief, Skeete faced intense cross examination from lawyers for the murder accused.

The lawyers suggested to him that he had fabricated the story of overhearing the men planning to rob the Namdars. However, Skeete denied the suggestions, but admitted that he had inquired from one of the Namdars’ workers if his boss had money in the house.
Furthermore, Skeete denied a suggestion put to him by one of the lawyers that police did not charge him after he provided information on the whereabouts of the murder accused. In many instances, it was put to Skeete by the lawyers that he was lying.
But the witness maintained that he was telling the truth, even as the lawyers pointed to several inconsistencies in his police statement, deposition from the preliminary inquiry, and at the trial. Earlier this week, one of the prosecution’s witnesses testified that Cassandra Dorsett provided her co-accused with head ties to cover their faces.
Previously, the parents of the deceased were among the witnesses called by the prosecution. During her time in the witness box, Namdar’s mother emotionally recounted that he was her only child.
The mother recounted how gunmen stormed her home and gun-butted her, before she found her son lying in a pool of blood inside the shop. As for the deceased’s father, he told the court that on the night of the attack he went to use the bathroom after which he heard loud gunshots coming from outside.
Further, the father told the court of how he hid in a bedroom from where he heard one of the gunmen conversing with his wife. Both of them testified that they could not recognize any of the men who invaded their home, since their faces were covered.
In court, both parents pointed out Chandler, who they testified to knowing for decades. This trial is continuing before Justice Navindra Singh at the High Court in Georgetown.