WHOSE DNA is on the cane stalk which was used to kill six-year-old Sean Luke?

“It was not Sean’s. It was not Richard’s,” was the submission of defence attorney Evans Welch during his closing address on behalf of his client Richard Chatoo, who is charged with Luke’s murder in March 2006.

Chatoo and his co-accused Akeel Mitchell are before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds at a judge-only trial. On Monday, Mitchell’s attorneys advanced their closing submissions on behalf of their client.

On Wednesday, Welch sought to discredit the prosecution’s evidence against Chatoo.

He said there was no “smoking gun” evidence to suggest that Chatoo was guilty of the crime.

Welch focused on the statements of the State’s two witnesses, Avinash Baboolal and Arvis Pradeep, the scientific evidence which excluded Chatoo, and the alleged statements the latter gave the police in which he implicated himself.

“Someone else held that cane stalk. Someone else was playing with Sean’s penis. Someone else was probably doing something to him. That person is a person with an interest to serve,” Welch said.

“Avinash says only Richard and Akeel took Sean into the bush. How is it we have DNA that doesn’t belong to Richard or Akeel but which suggests the DNA was someone who was intimately involved in the interference of Sean?

According to the DNA evidence provided by an independent witness, 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 underpants, and his penis.

Only Mitchell’s DNA profile was found on the boy’s underpants but it identified the presence of a third person.

This third person, both Mitchell’s and Chatoo’s attorneys have suggested, was Baboolal.

“Whoever that third person is has questions to answer, and it doesn’t line up with Avinash’s version of who went into the bush with Sean.

“…There is a serious possibility that the DNA was that of Avinash,” Welch advanced. He said even after he got Baboolal to admit to his willingness to give his own sample, the State didn’t have the “gumption” to test him. He also pointed to the testimony of the two lead investigators who said had they known the DNA of a third person was found, they would have tested other people.

Luke’s body was found on March 28 in bushes in the canefield close to his home at Henry Street Extension, Orange Valley, Couva, two days after he went missing.

Both Baboolal and Pradeep, in their testimony, said they saw Luke on the evening of March 26, when a group, which included Mitchell and Chatoo, went fishing at a nearby river.

They said Mitchell and Chatoo took Luke into the canefield. Baboolal said it was before the fishing excursion, while Pradeep said it was after.

Using numerous analogies, Welch accused Baboolal of pinning the tail of the donkey by the head and of throwing around pieces of the puzzle to serve his own interest. Welch also accused the police of dropping the ball by failing to do a proper investigation.

He said even the villagers’ instincts were