A THIRD partial DNA profile found on the cane stalk inserted into the body of six-year-old Sean Luke, killing him, is no “smoking gun” evidence as alleged by the defence. It is merely a flare gun or caps gun, creating lots of smoke and noise, prosecutors have advanced in their closing arguments at the end of the trial on Friday.
Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Sabrina Dougdeen-Jaglal on Friday, completed her closing address to Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds who is presiding over the judge-only trial of Akeel Mitchell and Richard Chatoo, both charged with Luke’s murder in 2006.
Dougdeen-Jaglal took the judge through the State’s evidence against the two and also countered the suppositions of the defence, saying their inferences and conclusions were not reasonable when stacked against the circumstantial and scientific evidence.
“Akeel Mitchell and Richard Chatoo have been pointing fingers at others from the start and when they did that fingers pointed back at them.”
According to the DNA evidence provided by an independent expert witnesses, Dr Maurice Aboud and scientific officer Camille Grant, traces of DNA were found on the cane stalk which was inserted into Luke’s anus which ruptured his internal organs, killing him; Luke’s pants, underpants and his penis.
Only Mitchell’s DNA profile was found on the boy’s underpants but the presence of a third person was identified in a partial profile on the cane stalk
This third person, both Mitchell’s and Chatoo’s attorneys have suggested, belonged to one of the State’s main witnesses, Avinash Baboolal.
Baboolal was the eldest of the group of boys who went on a fishing expedition on March 26, 2006, the day Luke disappeared near his Orange Valley West, Couva home. It is the State’s case, that Mitchell and Chatoo took Luke into the abandoned cane field where he was sodomised and killed.
Mitchell and Chatoo’s attorneys, in their closing arguments, say Baboolal had questions to answer, but Dougdeen-Jaglal rubbished this theory as she pointed to the DNA evidence presented in the case.
“This third profile… The defence wants to suggest it is the smoking gun and it is Avinash Baboolal’s profile and it means Avinash Baboolal sexually interfered with Sean Luke and had a hand in his death.
“They say that is the real killer… Avinash is the real killer. They are pointing fingers at others but there are other fingers pointing at them. It is a flare gun, a caps gun.”
She said the partial profile discovered on the cane stalk was insufficient for matching purposes, even if they had Baboolal’s profile available. She also noted that the partial profile were extracted from a cellular fraction or epithelial cells (found in skin, hair, blood) and not penile swabs.
“Cellular fraction is where this comes from not penile swabs. This is smoke…noise of a caps gun, not real bullets.”
She said if Baboolal was the villain, the defence wanted the court to believe he was, he would not be contributing a minor DNA sequence but would be “lighting this up like a Christmas tree,”
