Sukhdeo Dharamdat and his son, Ishwar Dharamdat, are now facing sentencing, after a jury yesterday afternoon convicted them both for the 2015 killing of their neighbour, Suresh Nandkishore.
While the elder Dharamdat was unanimously convicted for murder, the younger was found guilty in a proportion of 11 to 1, on the lesser offence of manslaughter.
Justice Navindra Singh, who presided over the trial, has, however, deferred sentencing to May 7, to facilitate the presentation of probation reports requested by defence attorney Pamela De Santos.
The 12-member mixed jury returned with its verdicts following deliberations lasting just under four hours.
It had been the prosecution’s case that the Dharamdat men murdered Nandkishore on February 3, 2015 at Handsome Tree, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, during an attack in which his father and brother were also injured.
Prosecutor Tuanna Hardy had said the onslaught was fueled by a bitter dispute over land which was awarded by the court to the Nandkishores.
One of Dharamdat’s other sons—Chaitram Dharamdat— had also been arrested for the murder. He was, however, among the more than a dozen prisoners who perished in the 2016 fire set by other inmates at the Camp Street Prison.
Testifying on Tuesday, was brother of the deceased, Parmanand Nandkishore, who recalled accompanying his father, Gopaul Nandkishore, and his brother, to their Handsome Tree property, where they had gone to repair a fence.
According to Nandkishore, the Dharamdats had become enraged after the portion of disputed land was awarded to his father following a lengthy court trial.
He said that while preparing to construct the fence that day, they were attacked by Sukhdeo and his sons.
Leading his defence in sworn testimony from the witness box on Wednesday, however, Sukhdeo sought to advance that on the day in question, it was he and his sons who were attacked by Suresh, his father and brother.
His argument was that when he retaliated, hitting Suresh with a piece of wood, he was doing so in self-defence.
Meanwhile, his son Ishwar, who led his defence in unsworn testimony from the prisoner’s docks, told the court that he was not present when the fracas between his father and the Nandkishore men started. His story was that he only arrived on the scene after the ordeal had already ended.
A 26-year-old Chartered Accountant at the time of his death, Suresh, also known as ‘Ravo,’ was said to have died of trauma and haemorrhaging in the brain.
Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh, had given the cause of death as cerebral haemorrhage caused by blunt force trauma to the head.
The convicts were represented by De Santos, in addition to attorneys Brandon De Santos and Alanna Lall.
Meanwhile, the state’s case was presented by Hardy, in association with Abigail Gibbs and Teriq Mohammed.
The trial was heard at the High Court in Georgetown.
