Appeal Court sets March 15 to hear arguments on lawfulness of capital punishment

Ex-soldiers on death row for murder

Three Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guards who were convicted of murder since 2013 and are waiting on death row for execution have moved to the Guyana Court of Appeal challenging the lawfulness of the capital punishment.

The murder convicts – Sherwin Hart, Devon Gordon and Deon Greenidge – were in 2013 found guilty of the August 20, 2009 murder of Bartica gold miner Dwieve Kant Ramdass. They were subsequently sentenced to death by hanging by High Court Judge Franklin Holder.
Following a Case Management Conference (CMC) on Monday, Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory-Barnes and Rishi Persaud announced that they would commence hearing full arguments in the case on March 15, 2021.
Initially, the Appeal Court had fixed Monday, January 11, 2021, to commence hearing the matter but the lawyers for the murder convicts requested additional time to file further submissions. Among them will be arguments on the lawfulness of the death penalty.
Appearing for the appellants are Attorneys-at-Law Nigel Hughes, Latchmie Rahamat and Ronald Daniels. Also, Hughes has informed the court that he will be leading fresh evidence on this issue and will be calling two witnesses – a professor at the Middlesex University and a Professor from the Columbia Law School.
Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Dionne McCammon will lead the case for the State.
It was reported that on the day in question, at Caiman Hole in the Essequibo River, the trio forced Ramdass into their boat and relieved him of $17 million, which he was carrying in a box for his employer. They then dumped Ramdass overboard.
During the trial, the prosecution called 16 witnesses during the three-month-long trial. The court admitted caution statements given by the former GDF Coast Guards. Based on a previous report, Gordon in his statement said that he had only been a soldier for about a year and a half. He said that he was stationed at the Coast Guard section and was doing patrol work, which was mainly the “stop and search of vessels”.
It was between 13:00h and 14:00h on August 20, 2009, that Gordon, Hart and Greenidge were on patrol. Gordon said that they were doing searches with the Coast Guard boat. He had stated that Hart drove the boat to Parika. He said he observed Hart speaking to an East Indian man while at Parika. The man later joined them on the Coast Guard boat and they moved off from Parika. It was noted in Gordon’s statement that the man was carrying a “brown box”.
Gordon also said when they were in the middle of the river; Hart stopped the boat and told them the man had “nuff money” in the box. Gordon in his statement said that all three of them decided to “kill the man” and “tek de money”. Gordon also said that he did not see who threw Ramdass’ body overboard, but just heard a splash in the water. He said that they divided the money and he called his sister to come and collect his portion. Gordon said that he gave a “canter man” the money to give his sister.
However, soon after they were all arrested, including his sister.
Meanwhile, Greenidge in his statement said that it was Hart who pushed Ramdass overboard. He said that after Hart pushed Ramdass overboard, he (Hart) gave him along with Gordon several million dollars to “shut up”.
At the trial stage, defence counsel brought up challenges to the voluntariness of the caution statements. Counsel had submitted that their clients were beaten while in Police custody. All of the Police witnesses denied those claims. The men in their defence all said that they did not write the caution statements and that the documents were written by Police detectives.