Committed to stand trial for murder in the High Court

Jun 19, 2022 News

The Court Journal…

By Renay Sambach

Kaieteur News – A committal to the High Court means that the magistrate’s court has found sufficient evidence for a trial to be conducted to determine whether or not an accused is guilty of the serious offence for which he or she has been charged.
Criminal offences start at the magistracy level. This is where the matter is called before a magistrate. However, at that level of the judiciary, the accused is not required to plead to the charge as it is laid indictable.
The next step is for either a preliminary inquiry (PI) or paper committal to be conducted to determine whether or not the court is satisfied that there is enough evidence for the matter to be heard in the higher court. At the end of either of the aforementioned, if the court rules that there is sufficient evidence the accused is then committed to stand trial at the next practicable sitting of the assizes.
In the High Court, when the matter comes up, the charge is read to the accused who can then plead either guilty or not guilty. In some instances, the accused opts to plead guilty to the lesser count of murder that is manslaughter – in other instances the accused pleads not guilty and the matter will then go to trial.
Witnesses are called to give evidence in the matter. The witnesses will testify before a judge and an empaneled jury.
The penalty for murder is death. Notably, even though Guyana does not enforce the death penalty anymore, it is still on the books. This means if someone receives a death sentence, he/she will not be executed but rather imprisoned for life.
A murder convict can be sentenced to life imprisonment, with the eligibility of parole, after serving a fixed number of years as ordered by the trial judge. On the other hand, the lesser count, manslaughter, carries a shorter period of jail time.
Below are some matters in which persons are committed to stand trial for the capitol offence at the next practicable sitting of the assizes.

Murdered Henry cousins, Joel and Isaiah Henry

HENRY BOYS
On March 1, last two suspects in the brutal murder of Joel and Isaiah Henry were committed to stand trial. The suspects are Vinod Gopaul, 34, called ‘Magga’ of Yakusari, Black Bush Polder, Corentyne, Berbice, and Anil Sancharra, 33, called ‘Dan Pole’ of D’ Edward Village, West Coast Berbice.
The two accused had appeared before Magistrate, Peter Hugh, at the Blairmont Magistrate’s court. Magistrate Hugh ruled that a sufficient case was made out against Sancharra and Gopaul for them to be tried by the police prosecutor.

The two suspects committed to stand trial for the murder of the Henry cousins, Vinod Gopaul (left) and Anil Sancharra.

Gopaul and Sancharra were jointly charged and remanded to prison on Friday, January 15, 2021 for the murders of teen cousins, Isaiah and Joel Henry, in the Cotton Tree backdam at West Coast Berbice.
The cousins were found murdered in September 2020, one day after they reportedly went to pick coconuts in the backdam.
The bodies were severely mutilated and an x was found engraved in their foreheads. Police had arrested three suspects and one of them had given the investigators a video confession admitting to the crime.

Murdered Canadian Citizen, Nicholas Jaipaul

CANADIAN CITIZEN
On March 24, last Magistrate Alex Moore committed three suspects in the murder of a Canadian citizen to stand trial in the Berbice High Court.
The accused in the matter are Moonasar Beharry, 56, a rice farmer of Lot 125 Section ‘A’ Number 70 Village, Berbice, Aszim Shivgobin aka ‘Blackie’ and Charran Sewdhan aka ‘Vickey’, 26, of Number 79 Village, Corentyne, East Berbice.
They were charged with the capitol offense of murder committed on Nicholas Ramkissoon Jaipaul, a Canadian citizen. The crime was committed between August 16 and 20, 2020.

From left: Devon Harry, Nicholas Hercules aka “Bucko” and Peter Lam

According to reports, the burnt remains of Jaipaul was discovered on land covered by vegetation along the Moleson Creek stretch of road just two days after he went missing from his grandfather’s home at Number 70 Village. His then 86-year-old grandfather had said they retired to bed on the night of August 16 but the next morning when he awoke, his grandson was nowhere to be found.
After several hours passed, the grandfather filed a missing person’s report at the Springlands Police Station and the next day, he received a call on his landline phone from a male who informed him that Jaipaul was with him.
Police had managed to trace the call to a location in Georgetown where one of the accused (Sewdhan) was arrested. Under intense interrogation, he reportedly confessed that Jaipaul was killed with the help of Shivgobin. He claimed too that the plan to murder the Canadian citizen was concocted by Beharry, the rice farmer.

Murdered, Keron McPherson

SOPHIA MAN
On Wednesday last, a woman who is accused, along with three others, of murdering her son-in-law, was committed to stand trial in the High Court for the capital offence.
In August 2021, the accused, Brenna Nurse, and three of her son’s friends – Devon Harry, Nicholas Hercules aka “Bucko” and Peter Lam – were jointly charged for the murder of Keron McPherson, 24, of ‘D’ Field Sophia, Greater Georgetown.
The matter was conducted in the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court.

Brenna Nurse

At the conclusion of the PI, Magistrate Roshelle Liverpool ruled that the prosecution had provided sufficient evidence to the court for the accused to stand trial in the High Court for murder. The matter was prosecuted by Police Prosecutor Visram Ramjattan.
According to reports, McPherson died from a single gunshot wound to his abdomen. It was reported that Nurse, along with her three co-accused, had conspired to murder McPherson, following a previous altercation he had with them. It was reported that early on the evening of Saturday, August 14, 2021, McPherson had gotten into a heated argument with his girlfriend over money, which she had squandered.
The argument escalated and it turned physical between him and his mother-in-law, along with the three men, who had allegedly attacked him. Nurse had reportedly lashed her son-in-law to his head with a beer bottle while one of the men had chopped him to his chest.
McPherson had managed to escape and went home. However, it is alleged that he was later lured to his death by a phone call. According to reports, Nurse’s daughter had called McPherson close to midnight on the said Saturday. He was reportedly reluctant to go at first but the woman kept calling him so he eventually heeded and left home to meet her. However, he never returned home and around 04:00hrs the following morning, his body was discovered lying in a yard at ‘C’ Field Sophia with gunshot wounds.