— as well as life sentence over Bartica Massacre

Convicted Bartica Massacre felon, Mark Royden Williams was given an additional death penalty on a murder charge; and life imprisonment on four counts of manslaughter when the Bartica Massacre trial concluded on Friday.

The sentence was handed down to him by Justice Roxane George SC at the High Court and comes after a 12-member jury found him guilty of the offences.
After that verdict, Justice George had imposed the death penalty on Williams called ‘Durant’ and ‘Smallie’ for seven counts of murder.
However, there was some discrepancy in the number of counts of murder the jury had found Williams guilty of, and Justice George had to rely on a recording of the jury’s verdict to sort the matter out.

Williams was eventually found guilty of another count of murder, making it eight counts in total, and Justice George imposed another death penalty on the criminal, informing him that he will be hanged by the neck until he is dead.
“May the lord have mercy upon your soul,” the judge said, adding: “The case had caused much trauma to the country”.
As it relates to the guilty verdicts for manslaughter, the judge explained that it was determined by the jury that Williams did not intent to kill or cause the four persons actual bodily harm.

On February 17, 2008, at Bartica, he killed Lance Corporal Zaheer Zakir and Constables Shane Fredericks and Ron Osborne.
Edwin Gilkes, Dexter Adrian, Irving Ferreira, Deonarine Singh, Ronald Gomes, Ashraf Khan, Abdool Yasseen, Errol Thomas, and Baldeo Singh were also killed in the massacre.
State Prosecutor Diana Kaulesar had told the court that on the day of the massacre, gang member Clebert Reece was forcibly recruited by one “Sad Man”.

Kaulesar added that it was because “Sad Man” phoned Reece and threatened to kill his family that he entered a car at East La Penitence with four men.
The driver of the vehicle, she said, had a handgun, while the other men had AK-47 weapons.
The prosecutor further told the court that the car took Reece to the Parika Bus Park, just off the Stabroek Market, where he met two men, with whom he travelled to Parika by bus. The series of events is said to have led up to Bartica.

After their arrival, the men were said to have attacked the Bartica Police Station, where they killed Lance Corporal Zaheer Zakir, Constable Shane Fredericks and Constable Ron Osborne.
On February 2, Justice George had sentenced Mark Royden Williams and Dennis Williams to be hanged by the neck until dead
Roger Simon called “Goat Man” has been freed of involvement in the Bartica Massacre after the 12-member jury found him not guilty for 12 counts of murder.