A DEMERARA Assizes jury trying Alvin Gounga, called Captain, for the murder of Desmond Henry following a gold row at Port Kaituma, NWD in 2005, yesterday failed to agree on a verdict.

Consequently, Madam Justice Roxane George discharged the jury, whose members had indicated that further directions would not be helpful, and ordered that the accused should face a retrial.

It is believed that the Director of Public Prosecutions would decide on whether or not to withdraw the murder charge against the accused, after taking into account the circumstances of the case.

It was a short case, in which the principal witness, the daughter of the deceased, once lived as man and wife with the accused. Everything had reportedly gone well, until the accused became angry after announcing that gold had been stolen from him. This created a problem between the principal witness, the accused and the deceased, who was shot with a bow and arrow by the accused on May 14th 2005.

The lone eyewitness was the daughter of the deceased, who claimed that the accused was the aggressor and had actually shot her father, who then spun around and picked up a pitchfork which he threw at the accused. Grimacing with pain, he also threw an axe at the deceased, the woman had said.

But the accused denied the story as told by the principal witness. He claimed that her father had first attacked him with a fork and axe, causing him to use his bow and arrow in defence of his life.

Defence counsel Mr. Dexter Todd had urged the jury to return a not-guilty verdict, but state prosecutor Miss Narissa Leander had contended that the shooting could not have been done in self-defence since it was done before any action had been taken by the deceased.

Government Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh, who had performed the post-mortem on the deceased, said death was due to wound infection; and declared that the deceased would have survived if he had received early treatment for his injury.

The jury, discharged yesterday without giving a verdict, was instructed to report to the court today for possible selection in another murder case.