Three years after a 12-member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict, 27-year-old Ravindra Paremdass will have to undergo a retrial following a decision by the Appeal Court of Guyana on Friday, which set aside his murder conviction and accompanying prison sentence.
Paremdass was implicated in the unlawful killing of Roopram Jagdeo, called “Lil Baby” and “Rabbit” who was said to have been murdered between December 20 and 21, 2012, at Providence, East Bank Demerara (EBD).
Paremdass was sentenced to 57 years jail by High Court Judge Navindra Singh
Deceased: Roopram Jagdeo
after trial. In that decision, the judge started at a base of 60 years and deducted three years for the time the accused spent awaiting trial. The Judge also ordered that Paremdass only be eligible for parole after he served 25 years.
Paremdass’s lawyer, Sanjeev Datadin had, however, appealed the court’s determination and when the Appeal Court considered the grounds, Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud concurred that Justice Singh failed to adequately put his client’s defence of self-defence to the jury for consideration.
On these grounds, the Court of Appeal set aside the conviction and jail sentence and thereby ordered that the accused man face another trial in the High Court for the capital offence.
This means that the matter is set to appear at the next sitting of the Demerara Assizes which begins early next year. The facts of the matter outlined that the two men were involved in a heated argument over a bicycle and as tension unfolded, Paremdass allegedly administered Jagdeo with several blows to the head with a piece of wood.
State Counsel Tamieka Clarke prosecuted the case.
