Businessman, staff appeal life sentences for murder of Berbice trader

Two men who were, in May, found guilty of murder are appealing their life sentences for which parole was set at 25 years. Berbice businessman Dennis Veerasammy and one of his employees Basheer Harrinauth, both of Crabwood Creek, Region Six (East-Berbice Corentyne), were convicted of the October 24, 2015 murder of Shameer Ali Mursalin.

Another one of Veerasammy’s workers, Delroy Fraser, had also been convicted of the killing. But he died while in prison before sentencing could be passed on him. Veerasammy and Harrinauth have now moved to the Guyana Court of Appeal to have their convictions and sentences overturned. A Notice of Appeal filed by Harrinauth briefly stated that he is challenging his conviction and sentence.
Veerasammy’s lawyer, Brandon DeSantos, however, has proffered four grounds of appeal, all citing instances where trial Judge Jo-Ann Barlow erred. “The learned trial Judge failed to adequately direct the jury on the law as it relates to joint enterprise and what specific contents of the purported caution statement could be used to assist the jury to show that the acts of [Veerasammy] did not point to him being a part of a plan to inflict grievous bodily harm,” counsel argued.

He further argued that there were elements of the caution statement which could potentially lead the jury to believe that his client’s involvement, if there was any, could be innocuous. According to DeSantos, the trial Judge also fell into error when she did not uphold the no-case submission made on his client’s behalf.
The convicted killer’s lawyer contended that the only evidence against his client was a caution statement and the evidence of the eyewitness was rendered manifestly unreliable after cross-examination and would show that the contents of the caution statement were incapable of belief.
In this regard, he said that the trial Judge wrongly admitted the caution statement. “There was no admission by the prosecution witness who purportedly took the caution statement that he was not honest in respect of the allegation put to [Veerasammy].”

In effect, a misrepresentation or trick was used by the taker of the purported statement to obtain it, the lawyer added. Moreover, the lawyer argued that the remarks of the prosecution witness may have influenced the jury and may even be regarded as an abdication of the duty to give a fair trial.
Counsel said that such remarks were totally prejudicial and without any hint of relevance, and although the court upheld objections to such inadmissible bias of evidence, the prejudice was already created in the mind of the jury. The Court of Appeal is yet to fix a date for hearing this case.
The prosecution’s case was that Veerasammy and Mursalin had an ongoing feud and on October 24, 2015, Mursalin’s lifeless body was discovered with a gunshot wound to his head lying in a pool of blood at his home. It was alleged that Mursalin had shared a relationship with the wife of one of the three men.
During their trial, the State called 11 witnesses, including Ricky Profit, who testified to witnessing the execution of Mursalin. Throughout the trial, the now-convicted killers had maintained their innocence, even stating that they had alibis for the time of the shooting.
Justice Barlow, in imposing the life sentence on Veerasammy and Harrinauth, took into consideration the serious nature of the offence, the loss of life, their resort to violence in settling a dispute, and the fact that a firearm was used during the commissioning of the crime. (G1)