Twenty-four-year-old Sean Dos Santos and 22-year-old Stephon Howard have been freed of the 2017 killing of Abdool Fazal Saheed after a jury acquitted them both this afternoon.
Following hours of deliberations, the mixed panel returned with its verdicts, finding the men not guilty of killing the man during a robbery at Freeman Street, East La Penitence, Georgetown.
After informing the smiling duo that they were free of the charge, Justice Jo-Ann Barlow told their legal team led by attorney Konyo Sandiford to not regard their counsel of the young men as having ended.
She admonished the lawyers to exert whatever influence they can upon the youths, geared towards them living productive lives notwithstanding the allegation that had been levelled against them, so that they never again have to be before any Court.
The young men had been accused of murdering Saheed in the wee hours of September 24th, 2017 at Lot 194 Freeman Street in the furtherance of a robbery.
They had professed their innocence in unsworn statements, at the close of the prosecution’s case, with Dos Santos refuting claims of ever confessing of the crime to investigators.
“I am innocent of this crime,” he had told the court.
Howard’s story was the same. “I don’t know anything that they [the police] are speaking about,” he had said.
The two contended that they had nothing to do with the crime, knew nothing about it and had also complained of having been placed on a botched identification parade which they accused investigators of organizing.
In her opening address at the commencement of the trial, Prosecutor Cicelia Corbin had said that on the fateful morning of the shooting, the Saheed family was immersed in preparations for the memorial of their patriarch, when they were pounced upon by bandits who invaded their home.
Corbin said little did the unsuspecting family know, the peace of their night, would be shattered and transformed into funeral arrangements for a loved one.
She had said that brothers of the deceased—Abdool Shalim and Abdool Alim Saheed—who had also been shot during the ordeal and later admitted to hospital, had earlier arrived in Guyana along with a sister, for their father’s memorial service.
Police witnesses had testified to Dos Santos allegedly telling investigators that it was he and Howard who shot and killed Saheed during a robbery.
Dos Santos, however, vehemently denied ever having such a conversation with lawmen.
Abdool Shalim Saheed had testified that it was Dos Santos and Howard who had invaded their home and attacked his family on the morning in question, killing his brother.
While he steadfastly contended that it was the duo who killed Fazal, he could not, however, provide specific details of the description of the alleged attackers.
All he could say was that the attackers were “male, (Afro-Guyanese), dark in complexion and about five feet seven inches tall.”
Sandiford had suggested to him that given the general nature of the descriptions he provided, he could well have been describing very many other males in Guyana.
Grilled about specific facial features of the men he said attacked his family after their face coverings had come off, Shalim was unable to provide answers, stating he did not know that all those “fine, fine details would come up now.”
When asked, he told Sandiford that he did not provide those details to police either, as he was never asked.
Sandiford, however, enquired from Shalim whether he did not know that it would be important in his description to the police of his attackers, to have included those details which he omitted.
Shalim answered in the affirmative but held to his explanation that the police had not made such enquiries from him.
