PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Nearly seven years after a prominent businesswoman was kidnapped and murdered, a court has heard that her killers had used an electric saw to dismember her body, possibly even while she was still alive.

“They cut off her legs up to her belly. They cut off both arms from her shoulders. They cut off her head. They cut up her belly and chest. Her body parts were then placed into black garbage bags for disposal,” Senior Counsel Israel Khan told the 12-member jury as the murder trial of Vindra Naipaul Coolman, the chief executive officer of a supermarket began on Monday.

Twelve men have been charged with murdering the businesswoman, who was abducted from her home in Central Trinidad on December 19, 2006. The defence is expected to address the court when the trial resumes on Wednesday.

During his four-hour presentation, Khan said that even while the woman had been murdered negotiations were still ongoing with her kidnappers to pay the ransom and have her released.

The body of the businesswoman has not been found, but Khan told the court that according to an eyewitness, “about nine days after her kidnapping, Vindra Naipaul-Coolman was sitting on a pool table in an unfinished red-brick house located on a hill at La Puerta, Diego Martin, west of here, late evening time.

“Her hands and feet were bound-up with silver-grey duct tape. Her mouth was also bound-up with duct tape. Blood was running down her left foot according to ‘eye see’ witness Keon Gloster, and she was crying.”

He said one of the accused, Lyndon James, who was armed with a nine millimetre black gun, was demanding money from her.

“Mrs Vindra Naipaul-Coolman with her feet, hands and mouth all bound up with silver-grey duct tape just sat on that pool table crying, crying. Lyndon James shot Vindra Naipaul-Coolman in her chest from point-blank range with the nine millimetre black gun. She fell back on the table.”

The prosecutor said that three other accused men — Shervon Peters, Marlon Trimmingham, a man called ‘Raphael’, who later died in prison awaiting trial, put on whitish rubber gloves and took turns in cutting up Naipaul-Coolman’s body with the red-and-white power saw.

Khan said that “all this was done in the presence of all the men who now sit in the dock. The prosecution is unable to say whether Vindra Naipaul-Coolman was actually dead or alive when she was dismembered.

“What I can say on her behalf, whether she was dead or alive, the ancient scripture from the Holy Scrolls, “The Dhammapada”, applied to her in the agonising conditions she was placed in due to no fault of her own,” said Khan.

Khan told the jury they would be hearing testimony from several civilian State witnesses including Naipaul-Coolman’s husband Rennie Coolman, her daughter Risha Ali, and their live-in housekeeper Rasheedan Yacoob.

Khan said that less than three hours after the abduction, Naipaul-Coolman’s family received a phone call with a male voice at the other end making a ransom demand.

He said the following day, a ransom of TT$122,000 was paid, but the abductors kept calling and making further demands.

“Nine days after Vindra Naipaul-Coolman was kidnapped, no further ransom payments were forthcoming and thus she was eliminated, deliberately killed. She was murdered. And even after she was killed, attempts were being made by the caller for ransom payments,” said Khan.