Latest update February 16th, 2025 7:49 PM
May 29, 2019 News
Initially sentenced to death for murdering a man in 2008 at Sand Hills, Berbice, Elmo Benedict and Dave Banwarie, had their sentence commuted to 25 years’ imprisonment following a judgment handed down by the Court of Appeal yesterday.
In 2012, Banwarie and Benedict were convicted of the March 1, 2008 murder of Rakesh Rajaram and were both sentenced to death
by High Court Judge James Bovell-Drakes. At the time the men were charged, the death penalty was the only punishment under the laws for murder.
Following the sentence and conviction, Benedict and Banwarie through their lawyer, Mark Conway, filed an appeal arguing that the trial Judge give the jury no directions on the standard of proof and erred in law for blurring the standard of proof.
The convicts further argued that the trial judge erred in law for not directing the jury to consider manslaughter in the absence of provocation and that the trial judge failed to properly address the jury on the defence of provocation. Conway also argued that the death sentence was too severe in all the circumstances of the case.
Chancellor of the Judiciary Yonette Cummings-Edwards, and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud, allowed the appeal, substituting the murder conviction for manslaughter and imposing a term of imprisonment of 25 years with time already spent to be deducted from the sentence.
In imposing a sentence, Justice Gregory said that the court was guided by the principles outlined for sentencing by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the case of Romeo Dacosta Hall v The Queen.
In that case, the CCJ had ruled that full credit should be granted for the time an accused person spent in pre-trial custody. Anyway, dealing with the ground of standard of proof, the Court of Appeal said that it had no merit.
Justice Gregory who read the judgment said that the court disagreed with the argument because throughout the summing up of that and other issues, the trial judge stressed to the jury that they had to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Banwarie and Benedict committed the crime. According to Justice Gregory, the trial judge urged the jury that if they believed the evidence that Benedict used a weapon to disarm Rajaram who was armed with a gun, then he (Benedict) had every right to defend himself, and should be found not guilty.
Relating the facts of the case, Justice Gregory told the court that on the day in question, a young woman who was related to one of the convicts was in a camp with Rajaram. The court was told that the men visited the camp where Benedict admitted to lashing Rajaram with a hose, while Banwarie admitted to “broad siding” him.
Rajaram received injuries and was rushed for medical attention by Banwarie and Benedict who made a stretcher for him to lie on. His cause of death was shock and haemorrhage and multiple cuts.
The Court of Appeal did not agree that the trial judge erred for not directing the jury to consider manslaughter in the absence of provocation. In fact, Justice Gregory noted that the trial judge did direct the jury to consider under what intention did Benedict beat Rajaram.
The appellate judge, however, highlighted that State Prosecutor Diana Kaulesar conceded that the trial judge failed to direct the jury on what to do if they found that Benedict did not beat Rajaram with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Furthermore, the Court of Appeal held that the trial judge erred when he urged the jury to not consider the fact that the men rendered assistance to an injured Rajaram. According to Justice Gregory, during summing up, the trial judge told the jury that the crime is the inflicting of injuries, and their (Banwarie and Benedict’s) actions thereafter should not be considered when arriving at a verdict.
Conway had essentially argued that the killing was not intentional, since his clients after realizing that Rajaram was seriously injured, took him to the hospital. The lawyer argued that the learned trial judge failed to ask the jury to consider the lesser offence manslaughter.
Nevertheless, Justice Gregory noted that the assistance rendered to the injured man by the men was relevant to the case and should have been put to the jury.
Reports indicate that Rajaram, who hailed from Kortbraadt on the East Bank of Berbice, had reportedly fled his home after he was unable to pay an affiliation fee and had racked up hefty arrears. He relocated to Sand Hills where he was employed as a coal miner. He sought refuge at the home of a family in the area and became involved with a teenage daughter of his host.
Rajaram’s involvement with the teenager reportedly angered her parents, since she was already involved with someone else and they ordered him to leave their premises, which he did.
However he stayed in the area and constructed a shack not too far from his former host. Some time after it is understood that Rajaram, armed with an improvised shotgun, abducted the girl from her home and took her to a clump of bushes in the area.
This furthered angered the girl’s relatives and it was alleged that the woman’s intended partner and a close relative armed themselves with cutlasses and went in search of Rajaram. He was later chopped to death.
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