JUSTICE Navindra Singh yesterday sentenced 49-year-old Quaison Jones, called ‘Blondie,’ to 57 years’ imprisonment after an Assizes jury found him guilty of murder committed on Marlon Greene.

Greene had been a fish cleaner attached to the Meadow Bank Wharf Fish Cleaners, and his killing on Monday 17th January, 2011, allegedly followed a row relating to an old story.

On the day in question, at about 09:00 hrs, five other fish cleaners were attracted by a ‘hollering.’ They said they ran to the scene and saw “Blondie’ over Marlon cuffing away at him.
According to them, when they got close enough, they noticed that ‘Blondie’ had a knife in his hand, and what appeared to be blood stains were visible on the blade.

The witnesses observed that Marlon was bleeding from a wound in the neck, and they all concluded that Blondie had been stabbing away instead of cuffing away at Marlon as they had at first thought.

The doctor who performed the post-mortem said there was a single wound and that the windpipe and jugular vein had been severed.
The cause of death was given as shock and haemorrhage.

Defence Counsel, Mr. George Thomas, urged Justice Singh not to inflict the death penalty on his client, and to be lenient when imposing sentence.
Earlier, when the judge asked the convict if he had anything to say before sentence was passed on him, ‘Blondie’ said, “I did not kill anybody.”

In his unsworn statement from the dock, and in a caution statement given to the police, Blondie said he did not kill anyone. He claimed that three men, including the deceased, who was armed with a cutlass, had attacked him. The accused said that he held on to the deceased who had the cutlass, when he heard Marlon (now deceased) shout, “Ow!…. Ah get bore!”

“I then left an went away”, the accused said in his statement.

The prosecutrix, Mrs. Judith Mursalin, who had referred to the defence story as “fishy,” had nothing to say when contacted by the judge.

Dealing first with defence counsel’s request not to impose the death penalty, the judge made it quite clear that he does not impose the death penalty. He noted that he begins the sentence for murder with 60 years. There was nothing favourable that he could discount from the sentence apart from the 3 years’ incarceration.
The accused was sentenced to 57 years’ imprisonment.
Written By George Barclay