Fatal stabbing accused told cops victim attacked him with gun
-trial hears
A jury yesterday heard that murder accused Christopher Da Silva confessed to stabbing 17-yearold Reyad Khan, who was at the time accosting him while armed with a gun.
Although Da Silva’s caution statement was admitted into evidence at his trial yesterday, defence attorney Maxwell McKay was adamant that his client gave no such statement to police.
In the statement, which was read by Detective Inspector Herbert Henry, the accused reportedly told lawmen that he was standing on the road talking to his girlfriend, when Khan approached him with two other men and asked, “If I want to done it now.”
Da Silva, according to the statement, said that Khan slapped him, while one of the other men stood behind him with a knife.
The accused, the court heard, told the police that he took the knife away, pushed the man to the ground, and then “go back and bore Reyad who had de gun.”
He said he subsequently ran away and threw the knife into a yard.
The charge against the 23-year-old is that on June 28, 2012, at 17th Street, Diamond Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara (EBD), he murdered Khan, formerly of 737 Section, ‘C’ Golden Grove, EBD.
In his opening address to the jury on Wednesday, Prosecutor Siand Dhurjon had said that Khan died from shock and haemorrhage due to a single stab wound to the upper chest, which severed an artery.
The state’s case is being presented by Dhurjon, in association with Tuanna Hardy.
The trial continues this morning before Justice Navindra Singh, and the 12-member jury at the High Court in Georgetown.