TEEN murderer Rayan Ali, who was imprisoned at the Court’s pleasure, appeared before Justice James Bovell Drakes, in chambers, in order to have his term of imprisonment reviewed by the Court.

The review resulted from a historical order made by then presiding Judge Roxanne George, who had ordered that the teen be reviewed every two years on or about the anniversary of his sentence. The purpose of the review is to determine whether the accused should be released or not.
“We need to keep track. I don’t want him to fall through the cracks,” Justice George had stipulated.
Meanwhile, as a result of that decision, Justice Bovell Drakes has ordered a probation and prison report which will be presented on December 15 when the Judge will make his ruling.
The case for the prosecution, presented then by State Counsel Prithima Kissoon, was based on the evidence of eight witnesses, including two eyewitnesses.
Thirteen-year-old Gomattie Singh recalled that she was hanging clothes on a line when she observed Premchand Sugrim, called ‘Copper’, walking along a dam at Number 53 Village backlands, Corentyne.
Having been earlier ruled as competent to give sworn testimony, the Grade Seven student told the mixed jury that she saw Ali, known as Karran, run out from nearby black sage bushes and before she could shout: “Copper watch out,” Karran struck the latter on his head with a three-foot long iron pipe which he threw aside before fleeing the scene.
The witness said she called Bibi Baskh (Shabanna), who lives two houses away, and told her Karran knocked Copper on the dam.
Singh said she cried and Shabanna went to the scene, placed Copper’s head on her foot and wrapped it with his shirt. His head was bleeding and his son called the police and they took him away.
Another eyewitness, Ram Singh, had recounted that, shortly before 10:00 hrs, he was walking with the victim who had a cutlass.
Singh said Copper never used the weapon as it fell from his hand on to the dam when Karran hit him on his head.
However, in his unsworn statement from the dock, Ali, who attempted to lead self-defence, told the Court that, after he awoke at his uncle’s house, he left and went to his Aunt Kamani’s home where he had breakfast.
Moments later, he was standing on the ‘middle walk’ dam where he saw ‘Uncle Copper’ with a cutlass that he used to broadside him on his buttocks, telling him to return to his mother’s house at Black Bush Polder.
Ali said: “I walked away but he followed behind me cursing. I saw an iron pipe on the dam. I picked up the pipe and my Aunt Kamani hollered out. I dropped the pipe. Uncle Copper walked away and, shortly afterwards, he returned. I was sitting on the culvert and he fired a chop with the cutlass. I picked up the iron bar and gave him a lash to his head. He fell to the ground and I dropped the iron pipe. If I had not lashed him, he would have killed me.”
After the forty-eight-year-old Sugrim was struck on his head, on July 10, 2011, he was taken to New Amsterdam Hospital, from where he was transferred to Georgetown Public Hospital, and succumbed ten days later.
A post mortem report, prepared by Government Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh, said death was due to cerebral haemorrhage with necrosis as a result of blunt cranial trauma
During the trial, Defence Counsel Kumar Doraisami had tendered the teen’s birth certificate which confirmed that he was 15 years at the time the offence was committed.
Prior to sentencing the prisoner, the judge noted that he was much younger than she had initially thought, as the caution statement attributed to him had misguided the court. It indicated that the convict was 17 years old when the attestation was signed by him and witnessed by his mother, Shamdai Ali, on July 10, 2011.
State Counsel Kissoon, rehashing the evidence, noted that if ‘Copper’ had intended to fatally injure his nephew, he would have done so while the killer was unarmed.
Ali was found guilty, on November 12, 2012, of killing his uncle by the mixed Berbice Assizes jury who had returned a unanimous verdict.

(Jeune Bailey)