-court awaits probation report
TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Ravindra Paremdass appeared before Justice James Bovell-Drakes in the High Court on Monday, charged with the 2012 killing of Roopram Jagdeo, called ‘Lil Baby’ and ‘Rabbit.’

Originally charged with murder, Paremdass opted to plead guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter.
The indictment read that between December 20, 2012, and December 21, 2012, at Providence, East Bank Demerara, Paremdass killed Jagdeo.
Justice Bovell-Drakes adjourned the matter until March 25, 2019, for a probation report on the accused.

In 2015, Paremdass went on trial before High Court Judge Navindra Singh, who had imposed a 57-year jail term after a 12- member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict.
However, in 2018, Attorney-at-Law Sanjeev Datadin successfully appealed the conviction and sentence on behalf of Paremdass. Datadin had argued that Justice Singh failed to adequately put his client’s case of self-defence to the jury for consideration.

Hearing the appeal was Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Rishi Persaud and Dawn Gregory. The Court of Appeal had set aside the conviction and sentence and ordered a retrial for Paremdass.
The state’s case is that the accused and Jagdeo were involved in an altercation that resulted in the latter’s death. The altercation between the men stemmed from a row over a bicycle.

According to reports, Paremdass killed Jagdeo by dealing him several blows to the head with a piece of wood. Paremdass had admitted during his first trial that the incident resulted from a fight, which Jagdeo started.

The murder accused had claimed that Jagdeo threatened to kill him with a piece of wood after he refused to lend his bicycle.Additionally, Paremdass explained that during the confrontation, he sustained injuries to the head. Consequently, Paremdass said he went into Jagdeo’s yard and dealt him several lashes with another piece of wood, resulting in Jagdeo sustaining the fatal blow to the head.