Eldon “Peppie” Sulvaran
WILLEMSTAD–The Court of First Instance found former Minister of Finance in Curaçao George Jamaloodin guilty of provoking the murder of politician Helmin Wiels on May 5, 2013. For this crime, he was sentenced to 28 years on Friday. Jamaloodin’s defence team, however, is of the opinion that Jamaloodin’s fate was already sealed before he was tried and convicted.
According to attorney-at-law Eldon “Peppie” Sulvaran, Jamaloodin was already publicly convicted as the perpetrator of Wiels’ murder in a Joint Court press release of July 13, 2018, about the conviction of Burney Fonseca, who was sentenced to 26 years on appeal for murdering Wiels. “He [Jamaloodin – Ed.] would have ordered the murder, negotiated and paid for it,” Sulvaran said.
According to the lawyer, the co-perpetration in the Fonseca case would have been based on four “pillars” of evidence: the statements of hitman Elvin Kuwas, the statements of a former Head of the Security Service, SMS messages, “and an alleged eyewitness” of a negotiation between Jamaloodin and Fonseca, “the latter of which can only be called a deliberate deception by the Court,” Sulvaran said.
He said there is “not a single” eyewitness about any negotiation between Jamaloodin and Fonseca in the file. “The witness they [the Court – Ed.] refer to has only heard someone say something about a negotiation. That is very different from an eyewitness.”
The defence calls Jamaloodin’s conviction in the Court of First Instance unfair. “Jamaloodin has even more hesitation about being able to trust that individual magistrates in this country will judge his case fairly and correctly. Jamaloodin is under threat of becoming the victim of a cascade of errors,” Sulvaran said.
Based on the “reprehensible” press release, the defence challenged the Judge. “Nobody else but the Judge of the Court who has condemned Fonseca on appeal handled the challenge request and as chairman dismissed it without any substantive treatment. It is at least remarkable and bears witness to the unlimited arrogance that a Judge who was involved in the judgment on the Fonseca case – on which the more than dubious press release was based – was allowed to determine for himself what consequences should be attached to this failure. The question seems legitimate whether he has been able to take an unbiased approach.” Posing the question is answering her, according to Sulvaran.
The lawyer said that in his opinion acts like these do not belong in a constitutional state. Another problem is that only around 10 Judges in Curaçao are dealing with criminal cases, most of whom in the meantime have given their opinion on the evidence presented in the Wiels murder case and the punish-ability of suspects.
“In addition, the Judges work in one building, in the same corridor, with a shared coffee room. As a judge, you must be standing firmly in your shoes to be able to contradict those predecessors you deal with every day in the most talked-about murder case of all times in Curaçao,” said Sulvaran.
According to the defence, Jamaloodin should not have been convicted as evidence presented in this case was “factually incorrect, inconsistent and not in support of each other. Jamaloodin is, therefore, rightly acquitted of being a co-perpetrator. In this judgment, evidence has been used which has been dismissed as being unreliable by a higher Judge in the Fonseca case. The stakes for the judiciary are, of course, very high after the reprehensible press release. If Jamaloodin’s prosecution were to fail, the Court and all its Judges would rightly suffer a significant loss of face,” Sulvaran said.
Again, two witnesses by hearsay were summoned, one of whom was dismissed by the Joint Court as being unreliable. The second witness, also by hearsay, could not provide any information about this case in 2013 and 2014, said Sulvaran.
“After he had closed a deal with the Prosecutor’s Office as a suspect in a money laundering case in which he was gifted a terrain which was purchased with criminal money and received big money as well, he suddenly had a gift that no other person possesses. The same day that the agreement was signed and he accepted the crime-related benefits, his memory increased dramatically and on that same day in 2017, unlike in all previous years, he suddenly made incriminating statements about Jamaloodin derived from a deceased person and therefore, not a verifiable source.”
The defence team said it will publicly discuss and refute the evidence in the courtroom during the appeal hearings in this case. “Jamaloodin does not have the intention to be incarcerated for 28 years for something he did not do. Fair justice is essential for this,” said Sulvaran.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/90160-jamaloodin-s-fate-was-sealed-his-lawyer-says
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