SHORTLY after a mixed jury at the Demerara Assizes had found Dwayne Jordan guilty of axing his reputed wife Claudeene Rampersaud to death yesterday, defence counsel Mr. Nigel Hughes called on Justice Navindra Singh to impose a custodial penalty instead of the death sentence.

Justice Singh noted that, in Guyana, murder carries one sentence – death — but counsel said he was introducing a recent amendment by the Caribbean Court of Justice which amended Section 100 of the Criminal Law Act to Section 100(A).
Hughes pointed out that, under the amended system, the death sentence is not the only penalty for murder. He claimed there are instances in which, dependent on the circumstances, a term of imprisonment could be imposed.
However, after defence counsel had promised to adduce arguments and cases in support of his contention by 13:00 hrs on Monday, December 10, Justice   Navindra Singh decided to postpone pronouncing the death sentence in order to give counsel an opportunity to present his case.
On the other hand, State counsel Mrs. Konyo Thompson pointed out that the 2010 amendment that the defence counsel was talking about referred to matters of that period and after, and not cases that took place in 2007, as far as the prisoner was concerned.
The legal issues involved will be fully discussed on the resumption of the proceedings on Monday afternoon.
Yesterday, Justice Singh summed up the evidence to the jury in the abandoned Den Amstel house murder trial, in which Dwayne Jordon has pleaded not guilty of killing his reputed wife Claudeene Rampersaud.
Thereafter, he handed over the case to the mixed jury for them to deliberate and return a verdict.
The accused, who had suffered injuries, including a slash that caused his gut to protrude from his belly and cut tendons, blamed another man for inflicting his injuries.
Supporting his not-guilty story in a statement from the dock, he told the judge and jury that he was in the habit of going to the main road to meet his wife at nights when she was returning from duty as a security guard.
He claimed that he did not see her, but acting on information that she had gone into the building with another man, he had entered the building where they once lived. There, he was attacked by a man with an axe and a knife. He was punctured in the abdomen, and the veins at the back of his lower legs had been cut.
He claimed he was in the nearby bushes when the police picked him up to take him to the hospital for medical attention.
But he denied speaking to them.
The dead body of the woman which was found in the abandoned home was taken to the mortuary, while the accused was taken to hospital, and was later charged with murder.
The investigations that followed delved into the question of how the accused came by his injuries, and whether it had anything to do with his being involved in a fight.
Reports state that when the accused was found in a clump of bushes not far from a house where the woman was believed to be murdered, he remained silent when asked by the police whether he knew how his wife got injured.
DPP lawyers Mrs. Konyo Thompson and Miss Renita Singh conducted the case for the prosecution. In their separate addresses to the jury, the defence urged them to return a verdict of not guilty, in keeping with the evidence; while Prosecutor Thompson requested a verdict of guilty.