JUSTICE Navindra Singh is expected to pass sentence, today, on two fishermen who confessed to killing 57-year-old Corentyne boat captain, Mahadeo Ramdeholl, also known as ‘Chico,’ during a piracy attack in 2017.

Last month, Doodnauth Singh, 63, and Khemraj Narsayah, 44, both fishermen of Rose Hall, Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice- Corentyne), were indicted before the Berbice High Court for the capital offence of murder but opted to plead guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter.

They admitted to unlawfully killing Ramdeholl during the course or furtherance of piracy on May 16, 2017, in the county of Berbice.

According to reports, on May 16, 2017, around 18:30hrs in the Atlantic Ocean, in the vicinity of Tain Village, Corentyne, Singh and Narsayah, who were armed with cutlasses, pounced on Ramdeholl’s boat. They attacked him and his two crewmen, Arjun Permaul and Parmanand Nandan.

After relieving the victims of their fish and outboard engine, the men struck Ramdeholl on the head and pushed him overboard. The men also forced Permaul and Parmanand to jump into the water.

Ramdeholl’s body was found near the Rose Hall foreshore the next day and a post-mortem examination found that he died by drowning.

Last month, Justice Singh sentenced a Corentyne businessman, Nakool Manohar, called ‘Fyah’ and his accomplice, Permnauth Persaud, called ‘Sanbat’ to death for the murder of several fishermen, who were killed during a pirate attack off the coast of Suriname in 2018.

In December 2022, a 12-member jury found Manohar and Persaud guilty of the charge which read that, between April and June 2018, while in Guyana’s territorial waters, they murdered Mahesh Sarjoo called ‘Kuba’ and Tilaknauth Mohabir called ‘Camion’, on board the vessel, Romina SK 764, while committing the offence of piracy.

It was further alleged that the men, during the same period, murdered Bandara called ‘Spanish man’, Laita Sumair called ‘Bora’ and Lokesh DeCouite, on board the vessel, Joshua SK 1418.