Defence attorney Nigel Hughes today, during cross examination, questioned Detective Inspector Ameer Mohamed about the methodology he used to compare signatures attributed to former government minister and former People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Chairperson Volda Lawrence, who served as an APNU+AFC counting agent during the March 2020 General and Regional Elections.
The exchange took place as the ongoing election fraud trial continued before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.
Detective Inspector Mohamed, a handwriting examiner, told the court that he compared questioned signatures appearing on election return documents with known signatures contained in passport application forms.
He said his examination involved side-by-side comparisons, magnification, microscopic lighting and the use of forensic comparison equipment.
Mohamed identified several handwriting characteristics he considered in his analysis, including initial and terminal strokes, hooks, loops, peaks, letter design, line quality, pen drag, writing fluency, pen pauses, pen lifts and the connectivity of letters.
He subsequently told the court that it was his “firm and definite opinion” that the questioned signatures were written by the same author as the known specimens.
However, during cross-examination, Hughes questioned whether Mohamed had first compared Lawrence’s known signatures from 2010, 2015 and 2020 with one another to establish whether they were written by the same person.
Mohamed acknowledged that he had not conducted that comparison for that purpose, explaining that it was not a request made to him.
Hughes also pressed the witness to identify specific handwriting features that matched between the known signatures and the questioned documents.
Mohamed pointed to characteristics including loops, letter design, connectivity, line quality and hooks.
When Hughes asked him to identify matching hooks between a 2010 passport application and a Form 24, Mohamed said he had marked an “initial stroke” but had not specifically marked a hook.
Hughes also questioned Mohamed about two 2015 passport application documents. Mohamed initially agreed that one was a photocopy of the other, but Hughes pointed out differences in the placement of Mohamed’s initials on the second pages.
Mohamed subsequently acknowledged that the documents were not copies of the same document and represented photocopies of two separate original documents.
The matter will continue on October 19, 2026
