The appeals filed by Devon Thomas and Randy Isaac who in 2015 were convicted and sentenced to 75 years each for murdering businessman Kumar Mohabir on Mashramani Day back in 2013 are due to be heard on February 3rd.
Among the grounds on which their challenge is mounted, they contend that their conviction was unfair and the sentence imposed too severe. In their notice of appeal, the men argue that the judge who conducted their trial made several errors in law—among them, failing to direct the jury to disregard and/or place no weight on evidence presented relating to the identification parade.
According to the appellants, the parade was conducted in unfair circumstances and as a result, their case should have been withdrawn from the jury.
On this point they said that even if the prosecution’s evidence of identification was taken to be true, “it was so slender a base that it was an unreliable basis for the conviction.”
Against this background they further advanced that the judge failed in withdrawing the case from the jury, especially given the no-case submission their attorney had made, because of what they described as the poor identification evidence.
This, the men argue, renders their conviction unsafe.
Another error they said trial judge Navindra Singh committed was the direction he gave to the jury on how it ought to have dealt with inconsistencies and discrepancies of testimony from witnesses. The appellants are of the view also, that Justice Singh erred in law in not adequately putting and/or explaining their defence to the jury.
Regarding their sentence, they said it was not only “unduly severe,” but that the judge usurped the discretion of the Parole Board by stating in his sentencing specifically when they would become eligible for parole. Isaac and Thomas are being represented by attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes, while the state’s case is being presented by Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Diana Kaulesar-O’Brien.
Their appeals will be heard by acting Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal, Rishi Persaud and Dawn Gregory.
Following the conviction, trial judge Singh imposed the 75-year sentence on the men, ordering that they were not to be eligible for parole, until after serving 40 years in jail.
The Judge had commenced the sentence at a base of 60 years, thereafter adding 10 years for the injuries inflicted on the deceased and another five years for the cruelty of the act.
The charge against the duo was that they murdered Mohabir, 25, of Enterprise, East Coast Demerara, who died of multiple stab wounds, in the wee hours of the morning of February 24th, 2013.
The state’s case was that on Mashramani Day—February 23rd, Kumar, who was with his family, was attacked by Thomas, Isaac and other persons.
