Joseph Kaladin was yesterday cleared of unlawfully killing his brother after a jury unanimously found him not guilty of the manslaughter charge.
The verdict was returned after the jury deliberated for about two hours. After being told that he was free to go, a visibly relieved Kaladin said thank you to Justice Jo-Ann Barlow who presided over the matter; as well as to members of the jury.
The charge against Kaladin was that on November 19, 2010, he unlawfully killed his brother, Ganesh Nabi, 33.
Before his exit from the courtroom, the judge admonished the former accused to consider that he had been given a chance and that he should desist from alcohol consumption as that had played a role in the incident between him and his now deceased brother.
Justice Barlow told him that he should use the chance he has been given to “talk to your God whatever you perceive him to be,” and to refrain from drinking.
“You are free to go,” she told a relaxed Kaladin who then exited the prisoner’s dock and made his way out of the courtroom.
Justice Barlow summed up the case to the jury yesterday morning before handing it over to them for their consideration and the return of a verdict.
At the close of the prosecution’s case on Monday, Kaladin who was unrepresented by counsel testified in his defence, that it was Ganesh who had attacked him with a broken rum bottle and he in turn only tried to disarm him.
He led his defence through unsworn testimony from the prisoner’s dock at the High Court, in Georgetown.
According to Kaladin, on the day in question they were drinking when his brother began arguing with him about a lost cell phone and some money.
Kaladin said that during the argument his brother armed himself with the rum bottle from which they had been drinking and broke it against a bench on which they were sitting, before boring him with it.
He told the court that he scrambled his brother’s hand in a bid to disarm him. “The only thing I coulda do was scramble the hand with the bottle,” he had said.
He added that a scuffle then ensued between them.
“Me and me brother used to live good. Me ain’t know wah happen to he that day, and it all seemed to be ’cause of the phone,” Kaladin had said.
He called two witnesses in his defence.
Government pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh, had testified that Nabi died of haemorrhage and shock due to a stab wound to the neck.
The state’s case was led by prosecutor Narissa Leander in association with attorney Teshanna James-Lake.
