The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) today dismissed special leave applications from convicted former members of the Guyana Defence Force to have their sentences reduced in relation to the murder of gold dealer Dweive Kant Ramdass and in one instance to have the conviction overturned.
The case involved Sherwyn Harte and Deon Greenidge, who were tried and convicted of murder on 2 July 2013 and on 3 July 2013, and were sentenced to death on a mandatory basis under section 100 of the Criminal Law Offences Act Cap 8:01.
The Applicants sought special leave to appeal against the oral decision of Guyana’s Court of Appeal delivered on December 22nd 2022 dismissing their appeals against conviction and vacating the original death sentences and replacing them with life sentences with tariffs. Greenidge also sought special leave to appeal his conviction and both he and Harte sought special leave to appeal the sentences imposed.
The CCJ decision was delivered by its President Justice Adrian Saunders who said it was authored by Justice Jacob Wit but concurred with by both himself and Justice Winston Anderson.
In the ruling he said Greenidge did not establish any realistic possibility that a potentially serious miscarriage of justice may have occurred by virtue of his conviction.
“There was ample evidence in the caution statement and circumstantial evidence on which the jury properly directed would have reached the conclusion that he was party to the joint enterprise to rob and murder the deceased,” Justice Saunders said.
Secondly, the court said in relation to the constitutionality of the death penalty it found that the applicants face no threat of execution and as such the arguments raised on the issue were “entirely academic in nature”.
And as to the argument that the reasoning of the Court of Appeal considered the death penalty being a saved law the CCJ said that its case law had expounded clear views on the savings laws in Guyana and there was no variance in those views and the reasoning of the Court of Appeal.
The men through their lawyers had also argued that the Court of Appeal had not adhered to proper sentencing methodology in the death penalty and in imposing life sentences. The court considered that in normal sentencing, a hearing would not be practical nine years after the sentencing and conviction.
However, the court held that in respect to future cases there ought to be in principle a resentencing hearing which could be brief. Justice Saunders noted that in this case the men were members of the Guyana Defence Force who had robbed and murdered an innocent citizen and as such there was no ground to regard the current sentences as being excessive or manifestly being outside the mainstream of sentences
“Even more pertinently on the conviction of felony murder the unchallenged Section 100 A of the Criminal Law Offences Act only attracts two sentences, death and life imprisonment. When the case imposes life imprisonment as in this case the section requires that the court shall specify the period being not less than twenty years which the convicted person must serve before becoming eligible for parole,” Justice Saunders noted.
He said when the court imposes a minimum of 20 years there is no space for consideration of the established sentencing principles. In the present case the court gave a period of 18 years which appears to conflict with the statutory minimum.
However, he said in all the circumstances the court decided that given that the special leave application was being dismissed it would not intervene to bring the sentencing in line with the statutory requirement.
Consequently, both appeals were dismissed.
Hart and Greenidge along with Devon Gordon, who was also a member of the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard in 2009 robbed and murdered Bartica gold dealer Ramdas.
Following a High Court trial back in 2013 a jury had found Hart, Greenidge and Gordon guilty of murdering Ramdass. Justice Franklyn Holder subsequently sentenced them to death.
Last year they appealed their convictions which were upheld by the Court of Appeal but which instead imposed life sentences and ordered that deductions be made therefrom for the time they spent in pre-trial custody.
Harte, the most senior of the trio, will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years. Greenidge and Gordon, on the other hand, will be eligible after 18 years.
The prosecution’s case had been that the three threw Ramdass overboard between August 20 and August 22, 2009, at Caiman Hole, East Bank Essequibo, after robbing him of $17 million he had been paid for a quantity of gold he sold to two men.
The defendants’ lawyers had moved to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that their sentence was unconstitutional and excessive.
Hart and Greenidge were represented by attorney, Ronald Daniels.
