Further re-examination of forensic accountant Terrence Jaskaran was suspended on Tuesday before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, pending the court’s determination on an application concerning his status as an expert witness.
Special Prosecutor Latchmie Rahamat told the court that the prosecution would require time to respond to written submissions concerning the application. She said the prosecution was prepared to either continue Jaskaran’s re-examination subject to the court’s eventual ruling or suspend his evidence until the legal issue was determined.
Defence counsel Nigel Hughes urged the court to suspend Jaskaran’s evidence pending a determination on the application to have his status as an expert witness recalled.
The issue also follows arguments raised during Monday’s proceedings concerning the use of Statements of Recount (SORs) in relation to Jaskaran’s report and missing or blank Statements of Poll (SOPs).
During Monday’s proceedings, defence counsel Dexter Todd argued that the SORs could be used to determine whether there was a variance between the figures recorded on the SORs and those contained in Jaskaran’s report. However, Todd cautioned that the court could not assume that figures appearing on the SORs would have been the same as those on the missing or blank SOPs.
The prosecution had sought to have specific SORs placed before Jaskaran in connection with the line of questioning that had arisen during cross-examination. The defence, however, raised concerns about limiting Jaskaran’s examination to only a small number of SORs, arguing that he would need to examine the totality of the SORs to determine whether his report would remain the same.
The court also heard that witnesses who are expected to give evidence specifically concerning the SORs have not yet testified.
On Tuesday, the Magistrate indicated that having Jaskaran give further evidence on the SORs at this stage could therefore be premature, since the court would first need to hear the evidence of those witnesses before determining how much weight should be attached to that aspect of his testimony.
The question of Jaskaran’s expert status arose as defence counsel challenged whether his evidence could properly be received as expert evidence.
Rahamat requested at least one week to respond to the written submissions.
The court subsequently suspended further re-examination of Jaskaran, with the prosecution to submit its response within seven days.
