Two years after it had expired the Advisory Council on the Prerogative of Mercy was recently reconstituted and members yesterday held their first meeting at the Ministry of Home Affairs.
It has been over a decade now since any inmate on death row has been hanged. Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon told this newspaper in June that the administration was committed to carrying out capital punishment, but had to find ways around the constitutional and other hurdles that have dogged the application of the law for almost a decade now. It is not clear whether the reconstitution of the council is an indication that government might be moving to apply the law.
Stabroek News could not ascertain whether the body reviewed any mercy applications at the meeting yesterday, but its Chairman, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee noted that there was a significant number of persons on death row and this would no doubt impact on the council’s workload. The constitutional body is required to get a written report of the case from the trial judge, together with any other information derived from the record of the case or elsewhere as may be required to be taken into consideration.
After obtaining the advice of the council, a designated minister is to express his own deliberate opinion to the President as to whether he should exercise any of his power in relation to the person. The body was last set up in 2002, under the chairmanship of then minister within the Ministry of Local Government Clinton Collymore. During its tenure, there were no recommendations on the implementation of the death penalty.
The new body comprises Rohee, Attorney-General Doodnauth Singh, Lieutenant Colonel of the Guyana Defence Force Jaswick Williams, Social workers Ronald Harsawack and Bhagmattie Veerasammy, Cheryl Rodrigues of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Raghunandan Singh an overseer of Good Success.
Luncheon had said that the administration had to work aggressively to address the problems preventing those on death row from receiving their sentence. He noted back then that the law of Guyana recognizes capital punishment. He said however that in trying to implement the law, government had to act in accordance with all of the standard legal counsels and procedures.
Recently there have been quite a few additions to the list of persons waiting on death row at the Georgetown Prison. Prison authorities have complained in the past about overcrowding at the facility. At the Georgetown Prison, the inmates on death row are housed in a separate cellblock, which can accommodate a maximum capacity of 30. The current total is 31. Each inmate is housed in a separate cell and is isolated from the general prison population under the strictest security regime at the facility.
Among the inmates up to May this year were: Muntaz Ally, Terrence Sahadeo and Shireen Khan, who have been in prison for almost 22 years for the 1985 murder of Roshanana Kassim. After their appeal was heard, the Guyana Court of Appeal affirmed their sentences and dismissed their appeal in 1996. They approached the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) that same year and it recommended that Sahadeo’s sentence be commuted to life imprisonment, but the government has not acted. Khan is one of the two female inmates on death row.
Lallman and Bharatraj Mulai have been on death row since July 1994, when they were sentenced to hang for the 1992 murder of Doodnauth Seeram. The Court of Appeal set aside the death sentence and ordered a retrial in 1995, but the Mulais were convicted and sentenced to death a year later. The Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence on appeal. After several requests to the government for information on the case in April 1998, December, 1998, December, 2000, August, 2001 and March, 2003 went unanswered; the UNHRC concluded in August 2004 that the brothers’ trial had been unfair and recommended “an effective remedy, including commutation of their death sentences.”
In 2002, Joseph Craig was sentenced to death for the murder of Nellis Hope, a female security guard in February, 1998.
Shawn St Hillaire was sentenced to death in April 2004 after he was found guilty of murdering his aunt, Norma Sandiford in 2002.
In the same month, Odinga Green was sentenced to death after a jury unanimously found him guilty of the murder of Sandra Harvey at Wisroc, Linden in December 1999.
In November 2005, Niranjan Rattan, also known as ‘Engine,’ was sentenced to death for the 2003 stabbing murder of Lalbahadur Singh also called ‘Petromax.’
In July 2006, Brian Vandeyar was sentenced to hang after a jury found him guilty of the murder of Haimnauth Ramnarine in 2003. Vandeyar stabbed Haimnauth several times to his body at Governor Light, Mahaicony River.
In September the same year, Devanand Tilaknauth, called `Fine Boy’, was found guilty by a jury for the 2004 murder of his wife, Chandrawattie Ramnarine, at Hampshire Village Coren-tyne, Berbice.
