Convicted killer mounts appeal against 70-year jail sentence

…argues trial Judge admitted prejudicial evidence

Rajesh Guyadeen, 41, called “Bruckmans”, who was in 2018 sentenced to 70 years’ imprisonment for the 2003 murder of Nandram Manohar, is of the view that the Judge who conducted his trial admitted prejudicial evidence. He argued, that this, coupled with the other misdirections the Judge gave to the jury, rendered his conviction unsafe.

Considering this, the convict is asking the Court of Appeal of Guyana to overturn his conviction and jail sentence. Arguing on Guyadeen’s behalf is Attorney-at-Law Brandon De Santos, while Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Teshana James-Lake is appearing on behalf of the State.
The Court of Appeal recently heard Guyadeen’s appeal against his conviction and sentence and has reserved its decision. Among the grounds of appeal advanced by De Santos was that trial Judge Navindra Singh admitted prejudicial evidence.
For context, he explained that Prosecutrix Abigail Gibbs told the jury that his client “run, run, run”. In her address to the jury, the prosecutor, among other things, had said that Guyadeen fled to neighbouring Suriname after committing the crime and was only arrested some 11 years after.
De Santos contended that whether this is true or not, it is of little importance in terms of proving the elements of murder. According to the defence counsel, the prosecutrix’s assertion is prejudicial because it “would invite the jury to draw the conclusion that the reason he was running was to get away from any liability he ought to have faced”. He reasoned, “When you say he ‘run, run, run’, as a prosecutor you may have fallen into an error of giving the jury a misconception that he ran away to escape”. He maintains that his client did not run away.

The defence lawyer said that other inferences could have been drawn from his client’s absence from the jurisdiction. Where other inferences can be drawn from the evidence, De Santos submitted that as a matter of law, the inference most favourable to the accused person must be drawn. While this evidence was prejudicial, he said, “it may have some probative value”.
“When one was to examine what the probative value was, about him running away, it does little, if anything, to establish the ingredients necessary for a murder charge. It may have established the reason why it took so long for the charge to have been brought and for the trial to have commenced. But that is not relevant…in a murder trial you need to have the ingredients for the murder charge led… and this running away aspect, in my respectful submission, did little, or anything, in terms of proving the elements of the charge of murder,” Guyadeen’s lawyer submitted.
For her part, Prosecutor James-Lake dismissed De Santos’ contention that the trial Judge did not fairly/adequately put his client’s defence of alibi to the jury. She recounted that when called upon to lead a defence, Guyadeen opted to give sworn testimony and called witnesses to support his alibi that he was not in the country at the time of the commissioning of the offence.
In putting Guyadeens’ defence to the jurors, the prosecutor said that the Judge indicated to them that this was a defence of alibi. Apart from summarising Guyadeen’s defence of him being in Suriname at the time of the incident, the prosecutor added that Justice Singh also analysed the evidence of the two witnesses he called in support of his defence.
Considering this, the Assistant DPP insisted that Guyadeen’s defence was extensively put to the jury by the trial Judge. “Equal treatment was given to the prosecution’s case and to the defence’s case,” she argued.
According to her, the trial Judge was “very clear” in his general directions that it was the prosecution that had the burden to prove the elements of the offence.
“The jury would have been clear because we had two cases that were completely opposite: the prosecution was saying that this is the appellant (Guyadeen) that caused the injuries… caused the death… and there we had the defence indicating that no we did not cause the injuries, the appellant was not there on the night.”
To this end, James-Lake submitted that taking the summing up as a whole, the trial Judge dealt adequately with the treatment of the evidence, including the defence of Guyadeen “so that the conviction in this matter ought to remain”. This appeal was heard by Chancellor of the Judiciary (ag) Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory-Barnes and Rishi Persaud.
Reports state that on the night of May 4, 2003, at Unity, Lancaster, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara (ECD), Guyadeen and 26-year-old Manohar were at a wedding house when someone alleged that Manohar punctured Guyadeen’s bicycle wheel. Shortly after, Manohar, called “Nando” was reportedly heard crying out that he had been stabbed.
The injured man was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital. His cause of death was given as perforation of the aorta and kidney as a result of a stab wound measuring some 16 centimetres in length.
According to reports, Guyadeen, who was the prime suspect in the man’s murder, fled the country and had been reportedly hiding out in Suriname. He reportedly returned to Guyana in December 2013 and was apprehended two months later when Police ranks raided a hotspot where they found him smoking marijuana.