JOEL Narine Persaud was sentenced to 23 years in jail for the gruesome 2012 killing of his friend with whom he was imbibing at Enmore, East Coast Demerara.

The sentence was handed down by Justice Sandil Kissoon in the Demerara High Court after the accused pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter and not guilty to murder.
According to the indictment, Joel Narine Persaud murdered Gangaram Bharat called “Bumpy” at Enmore between June 28 and July 4, 2012.

Presenting the facts of the case, State Prosecutor Orinthia Schmidt told the court that the duo are known to each other and were consuming alcoholic beverages when the accused asked the deceased to leave his house.

The deceased however refused the request of the accused after which a heated row erupted, causing Persaud to deliver several lashes to the head of the deceased with a sledgehammer, after which he Bharat fell.

Schmidt added that to conceal his crime, the accused then burnt the body of his drinking friend and later placed it in a shallow grave he had dug in his yard. She told the court that the accused then fled to Berbice and tried to escape to Suriname, but he was apprehended by the police after which he was charged for the murder.

A post-mortem revealed that Bharat died as a result of cerebral haemorrhage due to blunt trauma to the head. A plea of mitigation was made by defence attorney Maxwell McKay, after which Justice Kissoon handed down the sentence after considering the aggravating and mitigating factors of the case. The state was represented by Schmidt in association with Lisa Cave.