LIKE other cases, this one too had generated a lot of interest in the country.
The reason being that three sisters had disappeared while on a picnic trip with someone they knew very well.
It was a case of interest because there was no sign of the girls and their bodies have also not been found until today.
While some people believe that the girls could be alive somewhere, a man is serving a life sentence for their murders.
The convicted killer tried all avenues, even seeking the assistance of the Supreme Court of Fiji, to appeal against his sentence but he was unsuccessful.
He has already served half of his sentence behind bars for a crime that he confessed to.
As a flashback into one of the major cases in the country in recent years, The Fiji Times takes a look at the disappearance of the three sisters and the appeal process by the convicted killer.
IT was late June 2005 when news broke out about the disappearance of three sisters during a picnic trip to an island near their home.
The sisters — Ashika Sherin Lata, 19, Renuka Roshni Lata, 18, and Radhika Roshni Lata, 17, of Naria in Rakiraki had accompanied Dip Chand for a picnic on Malake Island.
When the sisters failed to return home in the afternoon of June 26, worry set in at their family home and a major search was mounted for them.
Chand’s boat was found drifting the next day with visible signs of blood on it and he told police that some unknown people approached his boat in a red boat and took the girls after assaulting him.
I remember talking to Chand when police officers were carrying out a forensic examination of his boat in Naria.
The three sisters called him aaja (grandfather) and he was known to their family, as it was not the first time they had gone for a picnic with him.
According to a judgment from the Supreme Court of Fiji on May 9, 2012, an extensive search carried out at sea for a number of days proved futile and the bodies of the three girls were never found.
On July 4, 2005, Chand confessed to police in his caution interview that in frenzy over an argument he had with Ashika, he killed the three sisters, hitting each one of them repeatedly on the head with a stick he used to kill fish. He was charged with three counts of murder and after a trial within a trial from May 1-8, 2006, the High Court in Lautoka ruled that Chand’s confession was made voluntarily.
The trial was held before three assessors from May 10-18, with 17 prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses testifying. After the trial, the three assessors unanimously found Chand guilty as charged and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the court ordering that he serve a minimum term of 19 years in prison.
Chand appealed to the Court of Appeal, which affirmed the conviction and sentence on October 19, 2010.
His lawyer, the director of Legal Aid Commission, Sunil Sharma, then made an application to the Supreme Court of Fiji for special leave to appeal and later an application to adduce fresh evidence.
The fresh evidence was that the police and the prosecution did not disclose to the defence the petitioner’s (Chand’s) medical card kept by Natabua prison and details of his medical examination at Lautoka Hospital on July 14, 2005 despite consenting to the tender of his X-ray report dated July 14, 2005 during the trial.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court of Fiji said, “a crucial consideration in deciding whether fresh evidence should be permitted in this case is that there is a strong likelihood that the petitioner was aware or should reasonably have been aware of the existence of the medical card now sought to be produced, as the card was maintained in relation to him, and the defence has produced at the trial the X-ray that was taken at Lautoka Hospital on July 14, 2005.
“However, even if the defence was not possessed of the said medical card, it is clear that the defence could have procured the same with reasonable diligence.
“The petitioner has not offered any explanation for not seeking permission of the Court of Appeal to lead fresh evidence.
“Having given the application of the petitioner to lead fresh evidence careful consideration, we are not persuaded that this is an appropriate case to permit the petitioner to adduce the medical card and details of his medical examination at the Lautoka Hospital on July 14, 2005 as fresh evidence, and we accordingly reject the said application.”
Also, one of the grounds on the basis of which special leave to appeal had been sought was that the State failed to discharge the onus upon it to prove that the DNA sample obtained from the crime scene and the victims tooth brushes were not contaminated.
“It is common ground that at the time the petitioner was found in the boat adrift in the vicinity of Malake Island, there were bloodstrains in various parts of the boat as well as on the clothing worn by the petitioner,” the Supreme Court said in its judgment on May 9, 2012.
“Samples of these bloodstrains were uplifted from the boat and the petitioner’s jeans, and along with toothbrush samples uplifted from the tooth brushes used by the three ladies who were victims of this horrendous and senseless crime, they were taken to a highly accredited laboratory in Adelaide, South Australia for testing.”
The Supreme Court said in essence, the evidence showed that the bloodstrains matched the DNA of two of the three victims. It ruled that special leave to appeal on that ground necessarily had to be denied. Also, it found that there was nothing in the other grounds to merit the grant of special leave to appeal.
“Except for the confession of the petitioner, the prosecution has relied entirely on circumstantial evidence to prove the guilt of the petitioner in this case,” the Supreme Court said.
“The circumstances relied upon were that the three victims were the only persons who took the boat with the petitioner on the fishing trip and picnic; that the next morning the boat was found adrift with only the petitioner in it; that extensive search over a large area of the sea in the vicinity of Malake Island, where the boat was found adrift, failed to find the victims or their bodies; and that the bloodstains found in the boat and the jeans of the petitioner were shown by DNA evidence to match the DNA samples of at least two of the victims. We have no doubt that the confession of the petitioner, according to the testimony of more than one independent witness and the finding of the High Court judge at the voir dire, has been made voluntarily.
“The confession does not stand alone and has been corroborated by other cogent circumstantial evidence. For these reasons we refused the application for special leave to appeal and dismiss the said application.”
The Supreme Court of Fiji judgment was a big blow to Chand as he had exhausted all avenues to appeal against his conviction and sentence. It basically meant that Chand has to serve the remainder of his life sentence for three counts of murder.
While different stories have been coming out of the prison walls about Chand’s case, the fact remains that he has a little more than nine years left to serve before he can walk out a free man.
His case is still much talked about in all corners of the country and only he knows what happened on that day.
