Former death row inmates still awaiting release

Feb 09, 2014 News

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By Rabindra Rooplall
Although Chief Justice Ian Chang ruled that 18 calendar years in prison is equal to a life sentence, a former death row inmate who has been in prison for 21 years and who was released from Death Row in 2012 is still languishing in prison.
His death penalty was commuted. Since then he has made appeals through his attorney Jainarayan Singh to the Committee for the Prerogative of Mercy (Parole Board) for release with little success.
Chief Justice Ian Chang had ruled that Death Row inmates Muntaz Ali, Noel Thomas, Lawrence Chan, and Vivekanand Singh have their death penalties commuted to life imprisonment. The ruling was made in June, 4, 2012.
However, only on June, 11, 2012 did prison officials remove Ali, Thomas and Chan from Death Row where they now await a possible decision of the Committee for the Prerogative of Mercy (Parole Board) of the President.
Muntaz Ali has been in prison for 28 years, Thomas for 26 and Chan 20 years.
Those whose sentences were also commuted were Hafeez Hussain, Colin Smart,  Noel Thomas, Terrance Sahadeo, Ganga Deolall, Bharat Raj Mulai and his brother Lallman Mulai, Kornel Vaux and his brother Daniel Vaux.
Reports are that the parole board has issued statements to many of these inmates stating that their matters will be reviewed for parole in 2016.
One inmate said that there is no death sentence anymore, and that their release is dependent on the Committee for the Prerogative of Mercy. The Chief Justice stated that if other prisoners on Death Row would follow procedure they now have to make the application. He said that the court is obligated by law to listen to their cases.
Many that were taken off Death Row had since petitioned the parole board requesting release. In October, 2013 a petition was filed by Counsel Jainarayan Singh to Chief Justice Ian Chang for Vivekanand Singh called “Red Beard” for him to be released based on time spent incarcerated as it was equivalent to a life imprisonment.
On a subsequent ruling the Chief Justice ordered that Vivekanand Singh along with others be taken to the Ministry of Home Affairs in front of the parole board with their counsel to argue the case why the men should not be released on 12, December, 2013 since the time in prison is equivalent to a life sentence.
The court had noted that Vivekanand Singh’s life sentence began on 7 th  February 1996 when the criminal session opened that year. Since then 18 years were completed on his sentence in prison although he has been incarcerated since September 1, 1993.
However, reports reveal that the parole board received a court order that advised the board to release Vivekanand Singh; however, the parole board requested documents from attorney Jainarayan Singh to show several cases in Guyana where persons were released after serving a specified time that complete a life sentence.
“They say the man (Vivekanand Singh) got to serve three years before the matter comes up back in front of them, and that takes up more years away from the man.” a prison source told this publication.
For a number of years the International Human Rights Commission has been plugging for the abolition of the death penalty in many countries. It described the death penalty as barbaric.
History
Vivekanand Singh and Hafeez Hussain were charged with Hazrat Hussain, and Tola Persaud, who all served sentences.
On 1st September 1993, Arnold Ramsammy was robbed and shot dead in his home. The four men were arrested three days later. On 26 March 1996, Hafeez Hussain and Vivekanand Singh were convicted of murder and sentenced to death by hanging, while Hazrat Hussain and Tola Persaud were sentenced to two and three years respectively, after being found guilty of manslaughter.
Terrence Sahadeo and Muntaz Ali were condemned to death for the 1985 murder of 18-year-old Roshana Kassim of Sheet Anchor, East Canje. They had been convicted with Shireen Khan. They have been in prison for over 28 years. Shireen Khan died in the New Amsterdam Female Prison in December 2009. Before she died she expressed the hope that she could be paroled so that she could see her grandchildren for the first time. She never got that wish.
Ganga Deolall was arrested on October 26, 1993 and charged with the murder of Yvette Lall on November 3, 1993. The body of 29-year-old Yvette Lall washed up at the La Grange koker with a slab of concrete in her stomach and a crankshaft tied to it. The victim’s head had been placed in a plastic bag, and her intestines removed from her gaping stomach before she was submerged in the Demerara River, according to the evidence.
On November 22, 1995, Deolall was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal and affirmed the death sentence on January 30, 1997.  He had his death warrant read to him twice but he got a stay of execution on both occasions.
Lallman and Bharatraj Mulai had been on Death Row since July 1994, when they were sentenced to death for the 1992 murder of Doodnauth Seeram at Mahaica Creek. The Court of Appeal set aside the death sentence and ordered a retrial in 1995. Again the Mulais were convicted and sentenced to death a year later. The Court of Appeal affirmed the sentence on appeal.
After several requests to the government for information on the case went unanswered in April 1998, December 1998, December 2000, August 2001 and March 2003; the United Nations Human Rights Committee concluded in August 2004 that the brothers’ trial had been unfair and recommended “an effective remedy, including commutation of their death sentences.
The Vaux brothers were arrested and charged for the July 1993 murder of Baiwant Jaikissoon, an airport worker, and were subsequently sentenced to death after being convicted for the murder on December 19, 1997. They subsequently appealed their conviction to the Court of Appeal of Guyana. Their appeal was dismissed on December 7, 2000.

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