By STACY MOORE Saturday, November 7 2009

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Silas Mack ...

MURDER, kidnapping and robbery charges against Silas Mack will be heard in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court when the preliminary inquiry begins.

This comes after the prosecution informed Magistrate Gail Gonzales when the matter was called in the Chaguanas Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, where Mack and another man — Ishmael Mohammed — are charged with kidnapping eight-year-old Leah Lammy in February 2008 and the murder of Gail Durity, 19, whose body was found in a coconut plantation in Manzanilla in June, last year.

Mack, 33, of Sultan Avenue, Cunupia, is also charged with kidnapping Sally Lobai, 26, who has been missing since December, last year; the kidnapping of Riannna Parag, 18, for ransom; and murdering Devica Lalman.

Parag also went missing in December while Lalman’s body was found last year in a rice field in Cunupia.

Mack and Mohammed are jointly charged with raping, kidnapping and robbing a woman in Chaguanas on July 25, 2008.

Mack is also before the Sangre Grande courts on some of the charges.

Mohammed was denied bail on Wednesday and remanded into custody although his attorney Joseph Honore argued that his client had been in jail for the past 100 days awaiting the start of the PI.

But Gonzales said she was refusing bail and advised Mohammed of his rights to apply to a judge in Chambers for bail.

In court on Thursday, there was a contingent of heavily armed policemen guarding the court’s entrance and compound.

Prosecutor Veronna Neale told the magistrate that all the charges against Mack are likely to be transferred to the courts in Port-of-Spain.

The Director of Public Prosecutions is vested with the authority to transfer any case being heard in the Magistrates or High Courts to a different jurisdiction. Both Mack and Mohammed will reappear before a magistrate on November 18.