Freed Bartica massacre accused Roger Simon, called ‘Goat Man,’ was yesterday asked to post a total of $900,000 bail for his release after Justice Roxane George SC found that the remaining charges pending against him from the attack are bailable.
In addition, Justice George yesterday also sentenced his former co-accused, Dennis Williams, called “Anaconda,” to five life sentences for the five manslaughter convictions that a jury returned against him on Thursday night.
He was already sentenced on Thursday night to death after being found guilty of seven of the 12 murders committed during the February 17, 2008 massacre.
His fellow convict, Mark Royden Williams, called “Smallie,” who was also sentenced to death by hanging on Thursday, was scheduled to be sentenced yesterday as well on the manslaughter convictions that were recorded for him but the decision was deferred until next Friday.
His sentencing was deferred as the prosecution is contending that the jury had convicted him on eight counts of murder and four counts of manslaughter. The court, however, said that its record indicates that there were seven murder convictions against the convict and five for that of manslaughter. In the circumstances, Justice George said the court will first review the transcript on the verdicts returned by the jury, before sentencing Mark Royden.
Simon, who has spent the last nine years in jail, was the only accused to be acquitted when the jury returned its verdicts late Thursday night.
The state subsequently gave notice of its intention to appeal his 12 acquittals, while Simon’s attorney, Peter Hugh, requested bail pending the appeals.
‘No appeal proper’
At a hearing yesterday afternoon, which Justice George set aside to deal with the bail request, she held that there were no actual exhibits of an “appeal proper” before her, as required by the High Court, but rather a mere intention to so do by the state.
In objecting to Simon being granted bail pending appeal, senior state counsel Diana Kaulesar had raised the nature and gravity of the offences, while asking the court to consider the amount of lives lost.
In response, Hugh argued that the granting of bail is merely to determine whether or not the accused will appear for trial. He contended that the state had advanced no evidence to suggest that his client will not attend his trial.
While Kaulesar advanced that the intended notice is the first step to initiating appeal by the state, Hugh argued that it would be unfair for his client to be on remand, especially since the prosecutor admitted that those appeals had not yet been filed.
He asked the court to consider that his client has already lost almost a decade of his life since his incarceration for offences for which the jury has found him not guilty.
Justice George subsequently ruled that a notice of intention to appeal was not an appeal. “What happens if tomorrow you no longer have that intention?” she asked. “It’s just a hope, that may or may never happen,” the judge declared, while adding that in those circumstances Simon was “quite free to go.”
But before Simon could actually be released, the court next had to consider Hugh’s application for bail on the additional charge of terrorism levelled against him from the massacre. Hugh said that the section under which his client was charged provided for bail and that there was no requirement for special reasons to be satisfied. Objecting, Kaulesar said that there is no specific provision stating that bail should not be granted but asked the court to consider that the penalty the offence attracts was a fine of not less than $1.5M together with death.
She said because of a penalty of death attached, the charge of terrorism was as serious as the offences of murder and treason. She said that while bail has been granted for terrorism, it has been in very limited circumstances where substantial reasons were advanced by the petitioner. She asked the court to also consider the manner in which the massacre was executed and the alleged terror struck on the people of Bartica.
Asked when the terrorism indictment was likely to be presented, given that Simon has been behind bars for close to nine years now, Kaulesar told the judge that she was unable to say specifically when, as she has not been so instructed.
The judge then enquired from the state counsel, whether in the court’s determination on granting bail it could consider the facts of the just-concluded massacre trial of which the court is well aware.
Acknowledging that the terror charge emanates from the massacre, Kaulesar asked the court not to take the facts of the case into consideration. The prosecutor contended that since the court would be assessing pretrial bail, it ought not to consider the just-concluded trial.
Justice George, however, noted that the court would go ahead and grant bail. She asked Hugh, who had requested reasonable bail, what figure he considered to be reasonable, as the prosecution asked for substantial bail. The defence attorney said that given his client has been incarcerated for the past nine years and lacks means of earning, coupled with the financial constraints with which his family would have been faced during that time and the fact that he had already been placed on a total of $400,000 bail for charges of break and enter and larceny also stemming from the massacre, he considered $200,000 to be reasonable.
The judge, however, said that the court would not be that charitable, and after taking all factors into consideration, set bail at $500,000 on the terrorism charge. The judge noted that Simon, who was visibly relieved, can lodge a transport as surety, before being released.
‘Rocked the nation’
Meanwhile, before imposing the life sentences on Dennis Williams, Justice George said that the court found no mitigating circumstances to consider.
She said the evidence showed that he clearly participated as part of the gang led by the infamous Rondell “Fine Man” Rawlins that launched the murderous attack at Bartica.
The judge noted too that the attack was one which “rocked the nation” for a second time as the Lusignan massacre, which claimed the lives of 11 persons, including five children, took place mere weeks before.
The judge said that there was callous disregard for human life, “which caused panic and terror in our nation.” In the circumstances, she imposed five life sentences, which she said will run concurrently, upon Dennis.
The jury had deliberated for just under four hours on Thursday, after Justice George’s seven-hour summing-up, during which two one-hour breaks were given. At minutes past 11pm on Thursday, Justice George read the death sentence for the two Williams, after a jury found them guilty of murdering at least seven of the 12 men whom they shot and killed on the night of the massacre.
Those who lost their lives in the murderous rampage were police officers Lance Corporal Zaheer Zakir, and Constables Shane Fredericks and Ron Osborne; and civilians Edwin Gilkes, Dexter Adrian, Irving Ferreira, Deonarine Singh, Ronald Gomes, Ashraf Khan, Abdool Yasseen, Errol Thomas, and Baldeo Singh.
Before a courtroom packed to capacity by many who endured the long wait in anticipation of the verdicts, Justice George ordered that Mark Royden and Dennis Williams both be “taken to a lawful place of execution, and hanged by the neck until dead.”
The silence which permeated the courtroom before the reading of the death sentences was immediately broken by sighs and groans from Mark Royden’s relatives as well as many others.
Dennis Williams, who has refused to attend court since last Thursday, was a no-show at the hearings on Thursday and yesterday.
Simon, who stood with his hands clasped, was visibly relieved, as the foreman announced 12 times that he was found not guilty of each of the 12 counts of murder against him. He exited the courtroom to scores of his cheering relatives, who could not contain their joy over his acquittal as they repeatedly shouted “freedom.”
The same could not, however, be said for Mark Royden Williams, who appeared in disbelief after hearing that he had been convicted.
He was represented by defence attorney Roger Yearwood. Dennis, meanwhile, was represented by attorney Saphier Hussain.
Kaulesar and Prosecutor Stacy Goodings presented the state’s case.
Though a heavy police presence was maintained throughout the trial, Thursday’s hearing saw reinforced security from additional heavily armed police, comprising some 40 members of the Guyana Prison Service, the Tactical Services Unit (TSU) and the SWAT team, who stood guard.
The case, which was heard at the High Court in Georgetown, saw just under 40 witnesses taking the stand. Thursday marked three months to the day since the trial commenced, while the ninth anniversary of the massacre is a mere two weeks away.
