HANSEL Andre Lewis, a deportee known as ‘Smiley’, who was sentenced to 13 years in 2016 for attempted murder, had his sentence reduced to 10 years by the Guyana Court of Appeal.

Lewis was found guilty of attempting to murder Chris Burrowes in a slashing incident which occurred in the wee hours of January 1, 2013, at the Rainbow Bar located at Charles Place, New Amsterdam, Berbice.

He was sentenced by Justice Brassington Reynolds at the Berbice High Court.

Lewis, through his attorney, Murseline Bacchus, S.C., later appealed the conviction and sentence, arguing that the trial was unfair and that the judge erred in law.

He also argued that the trial judge failed to sufficiently put his defence to the jury.

The appeal was heard by Chancellor (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards, and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud. The state prosecutor was Natasha Backer.

Justice Cummings-Edwards, while delivering the ruling, noted that the court allowed the appeal in relation to the sentence, but not his conviction.

The court found that the previously imposed sentence was manifestly excessive, and reduced it to 10 years.

According to reports, the men were consuming alcoholic beverages when Burrowes asked Lewis to move as he (Lewis) was smoking “something which was high-scented.”

Burrowes subsequently left the bar and walked some distance to urinate.

He was in the process of zipping up his pants when Lewis removed a two-inch plastic handled knife from his left side pocket and quickly stab him on his right-side neck.

Burrowes was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital, where he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit and remained a patient for almost a month.