Herman Ally, who was sentenced to death in 2012 for murder, yesterday had his sentence commuted to 18 years, with the time spent behind bars to be further deducted, after the Court of Appeal upheld his challenge to his conviction on the capital charge.
Ally, called ‘Shark Oil,’ had been convicted by a jury for the 2006 murder of Roydel Sandy, whom he had stabbed and was sentenced to death by hanging by Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire at the High Court in Berbice.
He would later appeal his conviction and sentence, while arguing among other things that the judge misdirected the jury on the law of self defence and admitted into evidence a caution statement which according to him, “ought properly to have been excluded.”
Additionally, he contended that the trial judge misdirected the jury on the law of murder, while also noting that she failed to permit him to mitigate his defence.
In fact, Ally had contended that the judge failed completely to permit him to put his defence to the jury.
Ally’s appeal was allowed by acting Chancellor Yonette Cummings-Edwards, Justice of Appeal Dawn Gregory and High Court judge Brassington Reynolds, who substituted the conviction for murder with one for manslaughter.The decision was delivered virtually yesterday afternoon.
Ally fatally stabbed Sandy at Rose Hall Town, Corentyne.
He had claimed self-defence, saying that after he had an altercation with a woman, Sandy attacked him with a knife.
According to him, the stabbing had occurred as he and Sandy struggled with each other.
Ally was convicted after facing his second trial. His first ended in a hung jury on March 8th of 2012, as a result of which a retrial had to be ordered.
He would, however, be convicted seven months later.
