CCJ to rule on Neesa Gopaul murder case on Friday

Three months after it heard arguments in Bibi Shareema-Gopaul and her lover Jarvis Small’s challenge to their 45-year jail sentence for the murder of Gopaul’s daughter, 16-year-old Neesa Gopaul, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) will deliver its much-anticipated ruling on Friday at 13:30h. The two convicts have now exhausted all their right to appeal.
The decomposed and headless body of the younger Gopaul was found stuffed in a suitcase in a creek along the Linden-Soesdyke Highway on October 2, 2010.
Also discovered were her passport and bank card. The suitcase was wrapped with rope and attached to dumbbells in an apparent effort to keep her body submerged.
The girl was found weeks after she was reported missing from her Leonora, West Coast Demerara (WCD) home. The young girl died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head.
The regional court, on May 10, heard separate appeals from Shareema-Gopaul and Small against their convictions for the murder of the former Queen’s College student. Together, they argued that their convictions were unsafe and that Guyana’s Court of Appeal’s variation of their initial sentences of 96 and 102 years, respectively to 45 years was manifestly excessive.
Shareema-Gopaul, 50, and Small were initially sentenced to 106 years’ and 96 years’ imprisonment, respectively, after they were unanimously found guilty of the teen’s killing following a joint trial before Demerara High Court Judge Navindra Singh back in 2015. They then lodged separate appeals against their conviction and sentence at the Court of Appeal of Guyana, which in August 2021 affirmed their convictions but reduced their prison terms to 45 years each.
At the CCJ, Jarvis’s lawyer, Nigel Hughes, and Shareema-Gopaul’s lawyer, Arudranauth Gossai, contended that prejudicial evidence led to their clients being wrongfully convicted.
Alluding to case laws, they argued that the sentences imposed by the local appellate court are manifestly excessive and are not in keeping with established sentencing guidelines.
The lawyers ultimately want the apex court to quash their clients’ convictions and sentences.
At the CCJ, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, tried to persuade the Judges that the evidence used to convict the duo was safe, submitting, that because the dumbbells found at the crime scene belonged to Small, they implicated him in the murder.
“…. The evidence against Small is that he had the dumbbells, the dumbbells were heavy, he was the person who lifted them, he was the person who took them to [Bibi] Gopaul’s house, he was strong… after he took them to Gopaul’s house…these dumbbells were found attached to the suitcase wherein [Neesa Gopaul’s] body was found…” reasoned the DPP Ali-Hack.
Concerning Shareema-Gopaul, she said that there is enough circumstantial evidence against her. Maintaining that the 45-year sentence was fitting, Guyana’s DPP, therefore, urged the CCJ to affirm the decision of the Court of Appeal of Guyana, highlighting that this was a gruesome case in which a mother conspired with her lover to kill her daughter.
The case was heard by CCJ President Justice Adrian Saunders and CCJ Judges Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Jacob Wit, Denys Barrow, and Peter Jamadar. (G1)