TWO applications lodged by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) challenging the decisions of separate magistrates to free former energy minister Eric Williams and businessman Bruce Rezende remain outstanding after several months.

Sources say recent checks at the Hall of Justice, regarding to the status of the appeals, could shed no light on whether a decision would be forthcoming.

Legal sources say they remain confused as to the hindrance of having the appeals expedited and further compared the speed at which past matters had been heard, including an appeal filed by then DPP Geoffrey Henderson against the decision of Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington in the Dr Chandra Naraynsingh murder enquiry which ended with Prof Vijay Naraynsingh being discharged on March 4, 2005.

Not satisfied with Wellington’s ruling against Naraynsingh, the State applied to have him re-indicted on a charge of murder. The matter was heard before Justice Herbert Volney who threw out the case in what legal sources described ’as record time.’ In less than a week after the application was filed Volney threw it out on August 25, 2005.

On October 29, last year, Chief Magistrate Sherman McNicolls found there was insufficient evidence for Rezende to stand trial for murder. He said based on the circumstantial evidence, which was the backbone of the prosecution’s case, a jury could not have convicted Rezende, who was accused of killing his wife, Bernadette, 14 years ago.

Rezende was accused of stabbing his wife to death on April 30, 1994, at their Mendez Drive, St Lucien Road, Diego Martin home. He was only charged after the conclusion of a Coroner’s Inquest on June 24, 2008.

Following McNicolls’ ruling, Senior Counsel Dana Seetahal, who represented the State, said she disagreed with the decision since there was enough evidence to have a trial. Seetahal further said that Henderson will challenge the matter.

Williams, the former PNM MP for Port of Spain South, who faced seven counts of corruption charges, was freed on December 31,2007, by Senior Magistrate Lucina Cardenas-Ragoonanan on the basis of insufficient evidence.

In delivering her ruling, Cardenas-Ragoonanan said she accepted the submissions of the defence and a prima facie case could not be made out ’on the basis that evidence was manifestly unreliable and so tenuous that no jury properly directed could convict.’

Williams was charged with seven counts of unlawfully accepting $75,000 from PNM Councillor Dansam Dhansook, a PNM Councillor at the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation.