TEENAGE murder accused Rayan Ali was found guilty of killing his uncle by a mixed Berbice Assizes jury whose unanimous verdict favoured the prosecution’s case.

However, Justice Roxanne George, presiding, has deferred sentencing until Thursday, when the court is expected to be in receipt of Ali’s birth certificate.
Justice George observed that the caution statement taken on July 10, 2011 and attributed to the accused records his age as seventeen years old, but records in the State’s file highlighted his date of birth as October 14, 1995.
Addressing the issue of a probation report, which was raised by defence counsel, Doraisami, Justice George noted that there is only one sentence for murder, and a report on the background of a convicted prisoner is therefore not quite necessary; but should the prisoner be 15 years at commission of the offence, sentence would be imposed at the court’s pleasure.
Headed by a forewoman, the jury returned its verdict in less than two hours after retiring, and it was read in a court room that was packed with relatives of the deceased, Premchan Sugrim, called ‘Copper’ and’ Pluck’.
Ali’s mother, also in the court room, wept silently at the verdict.
Questioned by the judge on what he had to say before sentence was passed, Ali responded, “Not guilty, Maam’.
State prosecutor, Attorney-at-law Prithima Kissoon, led eight witnesses, including two eye witnesses and a pathologist, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the teenager lashed his forty-eight-year-old relative with an iron pipe, resulting in cerebral haemorrhage with necrosis as a result of blunt cranial trauma.