Lakeraj Fredericks was yesterday sentenced to 65 years in prison for the murder of his brother-in-law, Clifton Bonus, whom he fatally shot at a farm in Linden in 2011.
Fredericks was convicted for the capital offence by a 12-member jury last Thursday and he was sentenced by Justice Navindra Singh at the High Court in Georgetown, where he was facing a retrial for the charge that he murdered Bonus between June 1 and June 8, 2011.
His sentencing was deferred to yesterday in order for his attorney, Madan Kissoon, who was unable to attend the previous hearing, to present mitigating factors.
Begging for mercy, Kissoon said that his client had been an exemplary prisoner, who was baptised in prison, attended bible study and intended to further his religious beliefs.
He said also that the 37-year-old father of two had an unblemished record and had embarked upon learning to read and write.
For his part, Prosecutor Siand Dhurjon asked the court to impose a sentence commensurate with the convict’s actions.
When given a chance to speak, Fredericks continued to maintain his innocence and asked Justice Singh to “please have mercy on me, in Jesus’ name.”
Before handing down his sentence, Justice Singh noted that Fredericks continued to refuse to accept responsibility for his actions, even in the face of the evidence presented against him, and the jury’s pronouncement that he was guilty.
“You have not expressed remorse, so I’m not sure what you want the court to show you mercy for,” the judge said.
Justice Singh commenced the sentence at a base of 60 years. He then added five years for the fact that the offence was carried out using a gun.
The court ordered that the prison make the deductions from the sentence, for the years the convict has so far spent on remand.
It was Fredericks’ second and final retrial for the murder. Last year, the trial ended in a hung jury.
According to a caution statement which was admitted in evidence, Fredericks told the police that after an argument on a farm where he planted marijuana, a person whose name he gave as “Ronald,” handed him a gun to shoot Bonus, and he did, but he did not die.
The statement detailed that Fredericks then handed the gun back to “Ronald,” who in turn shot Bonus to the head, killing him. “Ronald” and the convict then dug a 2½ ft. shallow grave at the back of the old airstrip at Linden and buried bonus.
At the close of the prosecution’s case, the accused professed his innocence in unsworn testimony from the dock, emphasising that he only signed the statement because he was threatened by police, who allegedly told him that he would be hanged in prison.
During the trial, Dhurjon had argued that Fredericks’ mother, Taramattie, in an attempt to mislead the court, was recanting the story she had initially told police, which implicated her son in the murder.
Despite her signature on a statement presented to the court by the prosecution, Taramattie had vehemently denied ever telling police that her son had called and told her that his brother-in-law had been shot.
The woman had told the court that days before her son-in-law was found dead, he had left her Nottinghamshire, Linden home, where he resided with his wife, her daughter.
When he failed to return after some time had passed, she said, she reported him missing and because of a phone call she subsequently received, she went back to the police station.
