Written by George Barclay
MURDER accused Ramesh Moniram was yesterday found guilty of killing his wife and sentenced to 76 years in jail.
Justice Navindra Singh, who imposed the penalty on the 28-year-old labourer, noted it was a premeditated murder with aggravating factors.

The judge told the prisoner, “You went there with the intention to kill and you completed your mission with such brutality. I think that this is a bad act of domestic violence.”
Pointing out that his court does not institute the death penalty, the judge added that the death sentence begins with 60 years.
To that, he said, five years is added for aggravation, five years for brutality and six years  for  premeditation.
“You are sentenced to 76 years,” he told the prisoner.
Following the verdict given by a mixed jury, the judge enquired from Mrs. Pamela De Santos who was junior counsel to her husband Mr. Bernard De Santos, S.C., who was absent yesterday, whether she had anything to say why sentence should not be passed. She replied: “We will appeal on the grounds that the  defence was not adequately put to the jury.”

CONFESSION STATEMENT
The main issue in the case was an alleged confession statement, which the accused denied making but which the judge admitted in evidence following a ‘voir dire’ (a trial within a trial).
In that statement which was subsequently read to the jury, Moniram is alleged to have said that he took his wife behind some bushes at the koker, and after having sex with her, he threw some poison in her mouth.
“After she started to fight up she fell into the canal. Me jump in after she and choke she. When I see that she died meh hide the body under some stuff in the canal.
“Meh then picked up my bicycle and went to my sister Veena and tell she that meh kill Sumita. Me ask she for a shirt and she husband took off he shirt and gave me. Me went home and tell me mother wah me do.”
Moniram had given that confession to Corporal Fraser.
The case for the  prosecution, as  conducted by Prosecutrix Mrs. Judith Gildharie-Mursalin,  alleges that  the accused  Ramesh Moniram called ‘Bobby’ murdered his 24-year-old wife Sumita August, on January 14, 2010, at La Grange, West Bank Demerara.
The cause of death was given by Forensic Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh as drowning.
But the  doctor had, in his external examination, found injuries about the  body which he said  were consistent  with  the victim receiving  a violent blow or by her coming into contact  with an object in the  water.
In his cross-examination, Mr. De Santos referred to what he called untrue  statements made by  the  witness, Corporal  Fraser, and was associating  him  with the policemen at Leonora who had  injured a teenager and was called upon to make a statement.