Appeal Court overturns Donald Rodney’s conviction

40 years later

Forty years after he was convicted for possession of an explosive device, Donald Rodney, who was found guilty and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, on Tuesday had his conviction set aside by the Guyana Court of Appeal. The unanimous decision was delivered by Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, who along with Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud deliberated on the matter.

In 1982, Donald Rodney – the brother of the late Guyanese politician and historian, Dr Walter Rodney, who was assassinated in June 1980 in a bomb explosion, was convicted of being in possession of explosives without lawful authority by a Magistrate.
The Court of Appeal, in overturning the decision of the Magistrate, noted that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, conceded that there was no evidence to support the conviction.
She explained that there is insufficient evidence to prove that Rodney knew the “walkie-talkie” he may have possessed was filled with explosives.
“There is no evidence to prove that the walkie talkie was an explosive; people don’t see a walkie-talkie as a container thinking that it will be filled with something,” she detailed.

Ali-Hack pointed out that though Donald Rodney was pardoned, it only applies to his sentencing and not his conviction. The DPP admitted that Donald Rodney’s right to a fair trial within a reasonable time as guaranteed under Article 144 of the Constitution of Guyana was breached due to the case spending an unduly long time within the criminal justice system.
Meanwhile, during his submissions, Sanjeev Datadin, the appellant’s defence attorney, lamented that his client being pardoned does not remove his conviction. As such, though he received a relief from his sentence, the conviction still lingers over his name.
Initially, when the hearing commenced in March, Datadin had stated that the conviction has deprived his client of essentially most of his life.
“A criminal conviction to an honest man is worse than a death sentence. He can’t travel, he cannot do the things he likes, because every form asks whether you have had a conviction,” Datadin noted, adding that his client is a graduate of the Hugh Wooding Law School and has been unable to practise in Guyana because of the criminal conviction to his name.
According to reports, Donald Rodney was the only eyewitness to the June 13, 1980 killing of his brother. However, two years later, he was convicted for possession of explosives without lawful authority and was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. Following this, an appeal was filed by Donald Rodney against conviction and sentencing. He was placed on bail pending his appeal hearing.
Further, in 2014, Donald received a presidential pardon by then President Donald Ramotar.
Dr Walter Rodney, who was the co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), was killed in Georgetown when a walkie-talkie given to him exploded in his car. A 2015 Commission of Inquiry (CoI), held into the death of Dr Rodney, found that his death was a State killing and that the then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham had to have known about the plot.
“Further, given the manner in which the country was run coupled with the threats issued by Prime Minister Burnham to the members of te WPA and the evidence of Mr Robert Allan Gates, we conclude that Prime Minister Burnham knew of the plan and was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Dr Walter Rodney,” the COI into Walter Rodney’s assassination declared.