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Essequibians sign petitions for release of former death row prisoner

Sep 30, 2012 News

 

Scores of residents from the Essequibo Coast have signed petitions for the release of convicted killer Noel Thomas.
The petitions which were signed by residents of Thomas’s home village of Pomona on the Essequibo Coast are being sent to the Chairman of the Committee for the Prerogative of Mercy (Parole Board) and other senior government functionaries, including the Minister of Home Affairs.
Thomas and three others had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment by Chief Justice Ian Chang, and since Thomas would have already spent a life sentence, having been on death row for more than 20 years, there is the likelihood that he could be released from prison to spend the rest of his life back in society.
Thomas’s sister, Carol, had already written to former President Bharrat Jagdeo pleading for his release and last week she again made a public plea, citing his medical condition and poor response to it by some prison officials.
The prisoner has been suffering from hemorrhoids for the past 16 years and is still in need of surgery.
Thomas himself is longing to return to the society he was pulled from after he chose to give up his freedom for a measly sum of $100.
In a surprise interview with this newspaper, the former death row inmate opined that he has already paid the price for the act he committed two and a half decades ago, and he believes in his heart that he should be a free man once again.
Chief Justice Chang in commuting the death sentences had remarked that Thomas and the three other prisoners were actually being penalized twice for their crimes.
In Thomas’ favour is the remorse he is showing for his actions on March, 19, 1987.
On that day he shot dead Abdool Kaleem Yassin in his Riverstown, Essequibo home, after Yassin’s elder brother Abdool Saleem hired him as the hit-man in a murder plot to get his hands on his brother’s inheritance.
“I still sit and study how it happened. I wasn’t supposed to get involved… but not working, not getting employment. It was just poverty and advantage was taken on me. I wasn’t no thief man on de road,” he told this newspaper.
According to Thomas, even a relative of the man he killed had shown him forgiveness.
“He had an aunt who used to come to court every day and she treated me like a relative. She was Auntie Jean; I don’t know if she still alive,” he added, acknowledging that there were also those who would be against his release from prison.
Already, the 53-year-old Thomas has been assured gainful employment by his businessman friend ‘Latcha’ should he be released soon.
He referred to two former death row colleagues, two brothers Asif and Shafeek Mohamed, who were released soon after their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
“These men were convicted twice. They appealed twice and they did not spend 12 years in jail and they are now free. I have spent 25 years,” Thomas lamented.
Thomas, believed to be the current longest serving death row prisoner, longs to reunite with his two children and the many nieces and nephews he has never seen. He also longs to lay eyes on the transformation that has taken place on the Essequibo Coast, since he was last there 25 five years ago.

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