BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE long-awaited trial of the men who are accused of murdering Gregory Anthony Zakers has finally begun.
The five: Nelson ‘Mad One’ Challenger, Glenroy Smithen, Shenroy ‘Shenny’ Francis, Moses Gardener and Jomi ‘Biggie’ Rawlins appeared before the Basseterre High Court today (Mar. 10) where a jury panel was selected.
The trial will officially begin tomorrow morning (Mar. 11) where the prosecution team would be calling its first witness to give evidence.
The men are being tried almost six years after Zakers’ death. His lifeless body was discovered by a tourist, at the cliff side of Black Rocks in Belle Vue on the morning of Saturday, April 12, 2008.
An autopsy revealed that he had died as a result of “severe traumatic head injury caused by a blunt object”
Initially, six men were arrested on suspicion of the murder but the then 25-year-old Clyde Norford was subsequently released.
It was previously reported that Zakers, who was 20 years old at the time of his death, had left Basseterre on Thursday, April 10, 2008 to visit a female friend in St. Paul’s Village but was reported missing on the following day to the St. Paul’s Police Station after he failed to return home.
His death came less than two years after he was unanimously acquitted, along with Jamal Bradshaw and Fitzroy Challenger, of the murder of 16-year-old Josh Smithen of St. Paul’s Village, who died on September 8, 2006.
The five young men, including Glenroy Smithen who was a juvenile at the time of his arrest, had appeared numerous times at the Basseterre High Court but had not had their cases heard.
The question of when the men would be tried had been raised on numerous occasions with the complainants stating that their constitutional rights have been infringed by the fact that they had been in prison for near six years without a trial.
SKNVibes understands that a Constitutional Hearing was held during the last quarter of 2013 where it was ordered that the men be tried.
