A Guyana-born police officer in New York was last week sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for fatally gunning down his ex-fiancée back in 2007 in an incident described as the deadly end of the couple’s two-year tumultuous relationship.
According to a New York Post story, Harry Rupnarine, 39, was given the maximum sentence after a Queens Supreme Court jury found him guilty in September of killing Guiatree Hardat, 22, on Atlantic Avenue in Woodhaven on May 10, 2007.
Rupnarine, a NYPD transit officer who had been found guilty of manslaughter last month, had taken the stand in his own defence claiming that he had accidentally killed Hardat with his 9 mm Glock service revolver while trying to shoot two knife-wielding thugs.
The young woman had only gone to the US two years before her demise after completing studies at Queen’s College in Guyana.
Rupnarine worked on the Brooklyn Transit Task Force after graduating from the Police Academy in July 2005.
Hardat’s friends and relatives at the time of the incident had said the relationship was rife with episodes of violence and jealousy.
The two Guyanese immigrants, the report said, met while Rupnarine was patrolling the Crescent Street subway station in Brooklyn, shortly after he got out of the academy.
Relatives had claimed that Rupnarine had tormented Hardat from the onset of their romance, calling her at all hours of the night to see where she was and keeping her out late against the wishes of her family.
Witnesses told the police the couple had been walking in the neighbourhood and appeared to be fighting over a cell phone.
They had just broken up, sources had said. Hardat was walking a few steps ahead of Rupnarine and, at one point, he was heard yelling, “Give me your SIM card, bitch,” sources had related.