At the Springlands Court on Thursday, Magistrate Krishendat Persaud committed a Corentyne labourer to stand trial at the next sitting of the High Court in New Amsterdam for allegedly stabbing a man to death.
Twenty-seven-year-old Balmiki ‘Mice’ Samidhar is accused of murdering Hemchand ‘Cats’ Persaud on October 29, 2006.
Police Prosecutor Sergeant Michael Grant had told the court that Samidhar and Persaud who are both of Number 47 Village, were drinking at a shop with friends around 7 pm when a misunderstanding occurred between the two.
Grant said the accused later whipped out a knife as Persaud was leaving to go home and stabbed him several times about the body. He was rushed to the Skeldon Hospital in an unconscious state and was pronounced dead on arrival.
Samidhar’s attorney, Khemraj Ramjattan submitted that because of the amount of alcohol his client had consumed he should have been tried for manslaughter and not murder. He argued too that due to “the state that he was in he did not know what he was doing.”
However, the magistrate found that there was sufficient evidence to commit the defendant to stand trial.
