Two young men who were convicted of the September 2000 murder of a nine-year-old boy and later sentenced to imprisonment at the President’s pleasure were on Monday freed by the Court of Appeal.
The decision was handed down by Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Carl Singh, along with Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justice Rishi Persaud, in favour of Arvin Shivnarine and Dameshwar Narine, who were spared the death penalty because of their age when the case concluded before Justice Winston Moore in the Suddie High Court in December 2005.
It was alleged that the duo murdered Tiab Gafoor at New Road, Charity, Essequibo Coast on September 11, 2000. During the incident, Gafoor’s six-year-old brother Fawaaz was brutally stabbed and spent some time recovering in the Georgetown Hospital. Back in 2000, Shivnarine was 15 years old and Narine was 13.
The case against the duo was that they broke into the Gafoors’ home with the intent to steal but came face to face with the two boys. The children were left home watching television while their mother went out. Their father was selling at the Charity Market.
After the discovery of the children, residents formed a search party and while combing the area found some bloody clothing. They later found one of the teens hiding under a bridge in the area. The other teen was arrested some time later by the police.
Attorney-at-law Glenn Hanoman told Stabroek News on Tuesday that he believed that his clients did not get a fair trial and as such were wrongly convicted. He added that the whole case was based on alleged confession statements made by his clients.
He said some of the policemen who took the alleged confession statements were later implicated in the 2009 torture of a 15-year-old boy who was held in connection with a murder investigation.
Hanoman told Stabroek News that in December 2005, his clients were found guilty of murder but because of their age, the penalty of death by hanging could not have been enforced; they were still very young.
As such they were sentenced to imprisonment at the President’s pleasure, the attorney said, explaining that this meant they would remain in prison unless pardoned by the President.
Hanoman explained that the judge took quite some time to impose sentence after the conviction and there was a further delay in transporting them to prison. He said by that time the two weeks’ period allotted to file an appeal had passed. It was explained that the prison would assist convicted prisoners to file appeals.
In the case of the duo, the prison officials did file the appeal although the time had passed.
Hanoman said that several years later, he was contacted about the case and in June last year he approached the courts and was later successful in getting the original Notice of Appeal filed by the prison warden deemed as properly filed.
Hanoman on behalf of the duo in a fresh Notice of Appeal said the verdict of the jury was unreasonable and could not be supported having regard to the evidence.
It was further pointed out that the leaned trial judge wrongly admitted into evidence oral and written confession statements to the “prejudice of the accused and having done so failed to properly and adequately direct the jury as to what weight to attach to [them]”.
The attorney said in the court document that the leaned trial judge failed to put the defence’s case adequately to the jury, failed to adequately direct the jury on identification evidence and erred when he failed to direct the jury on dock identification.
