Five appear in Trinidad Court to Face Charges

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, Wednesday March 12, 2014, CMC – Five men are due to return to court on Thursday after they were granted a total of TT$5.4 million (One TT dollar = US$0.16 cents) in bail following a multi-million dollar bank heist earlier this month.

The men – Chaitram Mohammed, 27, Navin Juteram, 34, Jason Villafana, 41, Kumar Narine, 21, and 33-year-old Sateesh Boodram – are accused of stealing TT$4.5 million from the Sangre Grande branch of Republic Bank on March 3..

They face various charges ranging from breaking and entering to receiving stolen property as well as robbery with violence.

Three of the men -Narine, Boodram and Juteram – have also been jointly charged with robbery with violence, as well as with breaking and entering for an incident which allegedly occurred at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) on January 16.

The men were not called upon to plead after the charges were read out in the Sangre Grande court, siuth of here on Tuesday.

They will return to court on Thursday in relation to the Republic Bank robbery, while the case against the trio for the RBC incident has been adjourned to March 24.

Last week, in a full-page newspaper advertisement, Republic Bank said electronic items, including video footage, were handed over to the police as part of their investigations.

Police had also detained a 51-year-old lawyer in connection with the robbery, but he was released after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard SC, said that there was not enough evidence to directly link him to the offence.