7/4/2008 9:59:00 AM Gay man attacked with machete, court hears ‘It’s all lies,’ Rashad Cooper said while on trial for attacking homosexual man outside bar
A homophobic attack on a St. David's man left him with fractured facial bones and a two-inch gash over his eye, a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.
Medical evidence read in at the trial of Rashad David George Cooper - brother of the murdered Cooper twins Jahmal and Jahmil - disclosed that the victim Shawn Nusum's cheek and jaw were broken in the machete assault, while his nose was fractured and he has partially lost the ability to raise the injured eyebrow.
Mr. Cooper, 25, of Fenton's Drive, Pembroke denies charges of unlawfully wounding Mr. Nusum on November 15 with intent to do him grievous bodily harm, and having a machete with him as a bladed article in a public place.
Instead, he testified, a man called 'Kent' was the one to inflict the injuries on Mr. Nusum, but discrepancies in his evidence have arisen.
The complainant previously told the 10-man two-woman jury that Mr. Cooper had taunted him on several earlier occasions for being homosexual, calling him 'faggot' and other slurs.
The taunts escalated into the attack in the early hours in a car park outside Club Ovation on Water Street, St. George following an argument between the men inside the premises.
As Mr. Nusum was leaving the premises and walking towards his motorcycle, he said, Mr. Cooper approached and chopped him about the face with a machete.
"I heard him call Shawn a faggot," former club bartender Ari-Genae Simmons said of the argument in the club, "that he was a faggot guy and that he should kill him."
When Mr. Cooper's lawyer, Rick Woolridge, suggested that his client hadn't made such remarks, the witness retorted: "Were you there? I heard him say he was a faggot, that he should kill him because he was a faggot and all faggots should die."
In a police taped interview played to the jury, Mr. Cooper denied having been at the club on the night of the attack, taunting Mr. Nusum or attacking him with the machete.
"It's all lies," he said to investigators.
Yet in his own evidence to the court, he admitted being at the club and explained why he lied: "Because I was on curfew at the time and did not want to get in trouble."
He went on to say that 'Kent' had called Mr. Nusum "a faggot and all that."
He also said that he had informed the case officer, Dc Patrick Jones, that 'Kent' had attacked Mr. Nusum - something the officer denied in his evidence.
Mr. Cooper said that he left the club after an argument with Mr. Nusum and drove home in his "baby mother's" car.
In cross-examination by Crown Counsel Nicole Smith, Mr. Cooper denied lying to the police about his name.
When she referred to the interview transcript in which he denied having a middle name - he has two - the defendant replied: "I mistook that for asking what my nickname was. I wouldn't lie about my middle name."
"Does nickname rhyme with middle name?" Ms Smith asked.
"No," Mr. Cooper said.
The trial continues before Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves.
