AMERICAN citizen, Ramdhani Persaud, called ‘Prack’, who was committed to stand trial at the Berbice Assizes for the murder of his wife, 43-year-old Bibi Shemdeen Kirodeen, aka Sharmilla, had the committal quashed by Chief Justice Ian Chang because of a procedural error made by the magistrate; and the Chief Justice ordered that the Preliminary Inquiry into the murder be recommenced at the lower court.

As a result, Ramdhani Persaud appeared before N/A Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs Marcus, and was not required to plea to the indictable charge of murder.

Persaud is alleged to have murdered his wife at their Canefield Settlement, East Canje, Berbice home on March 20, 2012, ending a spate of domestic violence.

A magistrate had placed the defendant on a one-year bond for assaulting his wife a mere few months before the fatal incident, when the late Sharmilla was discovered in a pool of blood by her younger son, whom she had moments before called for help.

Ravendra, then aged 13 years, was on the upper flat of the two- storey building when he heard his mother pleading for help; and running to the lower flat, which houses a bedroom and a grocery shop, he observed that the bedroom door was locked, but saw his father hurriedly putting items in a bag.

He retreated to the upper flat, closed the adjoining door behind him, and called his maternal uncle, telling the relative, “Come! Daddy stab up Mammy!”

Persaud and Kairodeen had lived together for twenty years, during which they had parented two teenage sons – Dharendra, then 16, and Ravendra, then 13.