Latest update January 20th, 2025 4:00 AM
Eight years each for two convicted killers
… a third gets probation
Justice Winston Patterson yesterday took the decision to render varying sentences on two brothers and their cousin who pleaded guilty to a lesser count of manslaughter.
David Jacobs (left) and Rajib Ali
The accused, Rajib Ali, 28, and the cousin, David Jacobs, both got eight years’ imprisonment while Rajib’s brother, Asif Ali, 26, was given three years’ probation.
They were all indicted for the February 5, 2006 killing of 45-year-old Rameshwar Persaud, a man with whom their mother previously had a common-law relationship.
The incident occurred at the accused’s Lot 1295 Diamond Housing Scheme residence.
Yesterday, a probation report on the three accused was read to the court after which three defence witnesses took the stand including Latchmin, the mother of the brothers and their employer.
Defence counsel Hukumchand then offered a plea of mitigation.
Latchmin told the court that on the night of the incident, Rameshwar Persaud, went to her home at Lot 1295, Diamond Housing Scheme, and threatened to kill her, her children and burn the house.
She noted that she and Persaud had been separated since 2003 and he did not want to leave her alone.
Latchmin added that her sons arrived home from work and found Persaud in the yard with a container and a piece of wood in his possession. They, along with a cousin, ended up in a fight with him.
According to her, while they were fighting she left and went to the Providence Police Station.
She stated that Persaud was a very abusive man to her and she was forced to make several reports at various police stations over the years but he was never caught. She said that Persaud had even stabbed her eldest son, Rajib in the back in 1999.
Latchmin said that Rajib and Asif are good children who helped her financially and were never rude or aggressive.
Hukumchand told the court that the accused had already spent three calendar years in prison awaiting their trial in High Court.
He told the judge to ask himself what could have caused three rational young men who were at work on that day to go home and behave the way they admitted they did.
The lawyer added that sometimes people are the cause of their own deaths. He added that Rameshwar Persaud was not living at Lot 1295, Diamond Housing Scheme and had no right to be there.
Hukumchand asked what true and proper sons would do if they saw violence against their mother or home. He then asked the judge to be lenient.
Justice Patterson before handing down the sentence said that the prosecution contended that the deceased succumbed as a result of beatings he sustained at the hands of the three accused and that in order to escape the beatings, he tried to get away but ended up in a trench.
He was then caught and taken back into the yard where he was beaten some more and tied up.
According to Justice Patterson, a person is entitled to defend himself or herself, property and family. The constitution provides for that, he added.
He also said that the deceased was caught where he should not have been and having been attacked, and rightly so, tried to escape.
However, he was caught and brought back for “further discipline” and tied up so that he could not escape before the police got there.
The judge said that if Persaud was taken out of the trench and tied up instead of being rendered an additional beating by two of the accused he does not believe that he would have died.
He added that there is evidence that Latchmin was subjected to domestic abuse at the hands of Persaud, that all three of the accused are first time offenders and evidence that Persaud had injured Rajib Ali in 2009.
Justice Patterson noted, however, that there were about 21 listed injuries that the deceased sustained.
He said that having discounted the three years already served in prison by the accused the decision was taken to give eight years each to Rajib Ali and David Jacobs while Asif Ali walked out the courtroom unshackled and into the arms of his relatives.
The sentence sparked some emotion from relatives who had flocked the courtroom, especially Rajib and Asif’s mother.
State Prosecutor was Kara Duff-Yehudah.
Attorneys-at-law Hukumchand, Kamini Pariag and Sonia Pariag represented the three accused.
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