JUSTICE Navindra Singh handed down a 30-year sentence on Kevin Francis on Friday after a 12-member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict.
He was charged for the murder on August 5, 2015 of 23-yer-old Akeem Yorrick.
The indictment read to the court alleges that Francis shot and killed Yorrick at Sparendaam.

Francis pleaded with the judge for clemency in handing down his sentence, holding out that he was innocent.
According to the reports, on August 2, 2015, Francis allegedly robbed one Frankie Stelling at his home, and three days later, on August 5, Stelling organised a group of men, one of whom was the deceased, to confront Francis at his home in the Sparendaam Squatting Area, East Coast Demerara.

As the men surrounded his house, Francis came out, gun blazing, and tried to make a run for it through the back of the premises, and Yorrick was hit in the abdomen.
Yorrick died while receiving treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.
Several witnesses testified during the High Court trial, including the surviving men who had surrounded the house, and the victim of the alleged robbery, Frankie Stelling, who it ws that organised the confrontation.

However, defence attorney, Maxwell McKay, upon cross-examining the witnesses, contended that the men were trying to frame Francis for the murder.
He told the court that one of the men who was part of the group was armed, and fired shots at the accused while he was trying to escape, but missed.

The deceased, one of the witnesses confirmed, was about four feet away from Francis, and McKay concluded that whoever fired the shot, missed the accused, and shot Yorrick instead.

The witnesses denied that any of them were armed, and maintained that it was Francis who ran out of the house with a dark brown gun, and fired shots to clear his path to escape.

The jury believed the State’s case, as they returned with a unanimous guilty verdict for Francis.

His mother, who was present in the court room, could not contain herself. She screamed and wailed on the corridors as her son was being taken away.
The State was represented by Tuanna Hardy and Ceriq Mohamed.