Man, 47, appears in court charged with cricketer’s murder

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Rakesh Jag­ger­nauth ap­peared in court yes­ter­day, charged with the mur­der of Ce­dros crick­eter Rashme Deoa­jit.

The 47-year-old ac­cused, al­so known as Rakesh Lal­man and Bowl­in, was de­tained by po­lice in Cen­tral Trinidad last week­end and was charged by WPC Laroade of the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion III, fol­low­ing ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion.

The charge al­leges that some­time be­tween March 16 and March 17 at Boodram Trace, Granville, he mur­dered Deoa­jit.

Deoa­jit, 28, a sales mer­chan­dis­er, was last seen alive on the night of March 16. The fol­low­ing day, rel­a­tives heard her phone ring­ing in­side her Granville home. Her broth­er went through a win­dow, where he dis­cov­ered her body on a bed around 6.30 pm. Jag­ger­nauth, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Krysan Ram­bert, ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly be­fore High Court Mas­ter Shabaana Shah. The pros­e­cu­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Rea­gan Ra­manan.

Jag­ger­nauth was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody and the mat­ter was ad­journed to April 20.

In an un­re­lat­ed mat­ter, a teenag­er, who has been charged with the mur­der of fa­ther of two Ra­jku­mar Pope, has been re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter ap­pear­ing be­fore the court vir­tu­al­ly yes­ter­day.

The 17-year-old ac­cused, who was de­tained at the Ju­ve­nile De­ten­tion Cen­tre in Oropouche, ap­peared in the Chil­dren’s Court, charged with mur­der­ing Pope on March 26.

Pope, 45, died hours af­ter he was at­tacked in a mi­ni mart on his way to his home at Friend­ship Vil­lage, near San Fer­nan­do. The teenag­er was ar­rest­ed lat­er that night and charged on Wednes­day fol­low­ing in­struc­tions from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions. The mat­ter was ad­journed to April 9.