AFTER deliberating for over four hours, a Demerara Assize jury trying Shakir Mohamed for the murder of a doctor’s wife, Shewraney Doobay, disagreed on a verdict last night.Justice Brassington Reynolds, the presiding judge who had earlier given them further directions, discharged them without their giving a verdict and ordered the accused Mohamed to face a new trial at the next session.
The accused was remanded to prison to await his new trial.
The jury is also entitled to disagree among themselves on a verdict.
In cases where this happens and the jury are satisfied that no further directions from the judge would be of help, they are discharged without giving a verdict and the accused will be ordered to face a new trial at another session.
Accused Shakir and another man named Mark Singh were jointly charged with the murder of Shewraney Doobay, called Monica.
But as fate would have it, Mark Singh died during the preliminary hearing, and Shakir alone survived to face trial at the Assizes.
During the investigations, Singh, it is said, had made a confession statement alleging that he had killed his aunt because she had been responsible for him paying heavy taxes.
But Shakir, who up to that time had been denying any knowledge of the crime, the police said, they had shown Shakir, a copy of Singh’s statement, which after reading same, he Shakir wrote a statement of his own in which he disclosed how Singh had hammered his aunt to death on May 24, 2011.
Shakir, represented by former High Court Judge, Mr. Jainarayan Singh and Mr. Motee Singh, from Berbice, denied making any statement to the police but admitted signing a paper at five places after the police had placed two black bags over his head from which a poisonous odour had emanated, and left him almost lifeless.
It was at that stage Shakir said, that he was forced to sign the two-page document which the police had in their possession.
The defence lawyers had told the jury that the alleged statement was a concoction by the police.
In addressing the jury, Attorney Jainarayan Singh urged the jury to find that his client who led an alibi defence was not around when the woman was killed and that the police had fabricated the story in an effort to secure a conviction.
On the other hand, State Prosecutrix Miss Mercedes Thompson had contended to the jury that the statement was that of the accused Shakir Mohamed and requested the jury to return a verdict in accordance with the evidence and the oath they had taken.
By George Barclay