Man admits to killing over bicycle

Mar 05, 2019 News

Almost three months after the Court of Appeal overturned a murder conviction and 57-year jail sentence against 27-year-old Ravindra Paremdass, he was slated to face a new trial yesterday at the High Court in Georgetown. However, he opted to plead guilty to the lesser offence, manslaughter.
Upon his arraignment before High Court Judge James Bovell-Drakes, Paremdass admitted that between December 20 and December 21, 2012, at Providence, East Bank Demerara, he killed Roopram Jagdeo, called ‘Lil Baby’ and ‘Rabbit’.

Ravindra Paremdass

The confessed killer will be sentenced on March 25, after his Counsel asked that a probation report on his client be presented to the court. The case for the prosecution was presented by State Counsel Tameika Clarke.
According to reports, Jagdeo was killed following an altercation with Paremdass who dealt him several blows to the head with a length of wood during an argument over a bicycle. During his trial in 2015, Paremdass had told the court that the incident was as a result of a fight, which Jagdeo started.

Killed: Roopram Jagdeo

He had claimed that Jagdeo had threatened to kill him with a piece of wood after he refused to lend his bicycle. Paremdass explained that during the confrontation with Jagdeo, he sustained injuries to the head. He said that he then went into Jagdeo’s yard and dealt him lashes with another piece of wood.
However, being dissatisfied with the conviction and sentence, Paremdass asked the Court of Appeal to review his case on the grounds that, among other things, the trial judge failed to put his defence of self-defence in accordance with the law to the jury.
After deliberations, the appellate judges, including Chancellor of the Judiciary Yonette Cummings-Edwards, agreed that the trial judge was duty bound to do so. In the interest of Justice, the Court of Appeal set aside the conviction and jail sentence and ordered that Paremdass be retried for the offence at this session of the Demerara Criminal Assizes, which commenced on January 8.

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