(Trinidad Guardian) A 75-year-old man who hired a hitman to kill his unfaithful wife so that he could run off with his mistress in the United States was freed yesterday.
After reviewing the submissions of Daniel Khan and Israel Khan, SC, Justice Gail Gonzales ordered the immediate release of Basdeo Debideen who served 36 years in prison for his role in the Mother’s Day murder of Nyantra Debideen.
She said the aggravating factors in considering the matter were the breach of familiar trust and the fact that it was premeditated. She said there were no mitigating factors and, in her resentencing, began at 40 years with a five-year discount for his forthrightness.
She said she looked at Debideen not as he was in 1987 when he was charged, but who he is now.
“Interestingly he does not blame the deceased. He does not absolve himself. He accepts full responsibility and condemns his actions for which he feels shame and seeks atonement,” Gonzales said.
She said the sentencing started at 35 years and not 40 because in her time resentencing, Debideen was the first person who admitted wholeheartedly to doing what he was sentenced for and had not blamed the victim.
Gonzales said Debideen’s character while in prison where he devoted himself to the Pentecostal faith, engaged in sporting activities and did not breach any of the prison rules, made her not wait for a probation officer’s report or until January to resentence him. As a result, Debideen was ordered to be released forthwith.
In his application for clemency in 2019, Debideen said he was sentenced to death in 1989. On April 1, 1998, his death sentence was commuted to 75 years in prison with the earliest release date on March 31, 2048, and the final possible release 25 years later.
He submitted that he was married to Nyantra and at the time of the killing they had two daughters, ages six and 12. At the time he was a businessman who owned a sporting goods store that allowed him to travel.
The State’s case was that Debideen conspired with another man to kill his wife for $50,000, first by choking her to death. When that failed, he gave the killer a gun and asked that he shoot her when he and the girls were not home.
Debideen agreed that this was the plan but denied that he did it to collect an insurance policy as alleged by the prosecution.
He submitted that after his wife cheated on him, he could not continue being with her and at the suggestion of his mistress formulated a plan to have her killed and then migrate to the US with the children to live with his lover.
On the day of the killing, Debideen said, he saw his co-accused shoot her and “became overwhelmed with regret and self-loathing.” His wife was taken to hospital where she died.
“I subsequently began to initiate steps to migrate to the US with my children to live with my mistress. However, my mother had discovered what I had done and what I was planning to do, and she informed the police that I was involved in the death of my wife,” he recalled.
He said he pleaded not guilty to the murder because he did not want to be hanged and fully denied his involvement in the crime. His alibi at the time was that he was at Caura “making a cook” when the shooting occurred. On December 18, 1989, he was found guilty of murder.
During his nine years on death row, Debideen was fearful for his daughters and the future they faced. In 1998 when the Privy Council handed down the Pratt and Morgan verdict, his sentence was substituted to 75 years with hard labour.
“As I look back at what I did, I am overpowered by feelings of guilt, remorse and regret for my actions which resulted in the loss of my loving wife. I sincerely apologise for the agony, pain and suffering I have inflicted upon society and, in particular, my family.
“I will forever regret what I have done and the heartache I have caused my daughters. I am sincerely sorry to the family of my wife; I have taken from them someone who can never be replaced,” he said.
Debideen said his daughters and in-laws have all forgiven him, and he plans to work with young people as his time in prison made him into a better human being.
