Daughter, hitman sentenced to death for father’s murder

The Demerara High Court on Friday handed down the death sentence to both Bibi Nazeela Habiboodean and Linden Lewis after a jury had found them guilty of the capital offence of murder.

Bibi, who is said to be in her 50s, had contracted Lewis, called ‘Bullet’, 34, to beat her 76-year-old father Habiboodean (only name given) in an effort to compel the elderly man to sign over his property to her.
It was reported that the businessman, of Ruby, East Bank Essequibo (EBE), was badly beaten at his home on February 14, 2008. The elderly man, who owned a gas station, died the following day while receiving treatment at a private city hospital.

Shortly after the businessman was killed, the Police had arrested Bibi and Terry Lewton, who was employed by her now dead father. However, they were both discharged in 2009 owing to insufficient evidence following a Preliminary Inquiry held at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate’s Court.
The murder of the pensioner had gone cold for several years, until 2016, when Police received new leads which led to the arrest of his daughter and the hitman. That year, Lewis was arrested for questioning about the murders of Good Hope, East Bank Essequibo rice farmers Mohamed and Jamilla Munir.
Police said he confessed to being the hitman in Habiboodean’s murder, and implicated Habiboodean’s daughter as the plotter. The woman later turned herself in to the Police in the company of her lawyer.

Professed innocence
Bibi and Lewis – who were prosecuted by Senior State Counsel Lisa Cave – are the third persons to be sentenced to death for this year. They had initially denied the charge, which stated that between February 14 and 15, 2008, they murdered Habiboodean.
On Friday morning, Justice Sandil Kissoon summed up the evidence in their trial and put the case to the jury for deliberation on a verdict. The jury deliberated for close to two hours, and emerged with the unanimous guilty verdicts at around 15:30h.

Bibi and Lewis, who appeared in court via Zoom from prison, have, however, maintained their innocence.
“With all due respect, members of the jury…to be honest with y’all, I know y’all is just human beings, and y’all seh y’all find me guilty. I still telling y’all me ain’t do nothing. To be honest with y’all, me ain’t get a fair trial. I gon left everything in the hands of God,” Lewis said in his address to the court.
“I am innocent of this offence,” said Bibi in her remarks.

Motivated by greed
Justice Kissoon, in his sentencing remarks, pointed to the horrific and tragic factual circumstances of the elderly man’s murder, which he said are without parallel in the memory of his court. The Judge noted that both the “unthinkable” and “unspeakable” have occurred in this case.
According to Justice Kissoon, an elderly parent, a father of 76 years, who toiled and sacrificed over the years, was viciously and violently beaten to death in his home in the course of events “conceived, planned, and set in train by none other than his daughter.”
Bibi, Justice Kissoon said, was motivated by greed and an overwhelming desire for further financial and material wealth, and as a result procured, directed, and commanded Lewis to inflict violence on her elderly father to compel him to sign a document to grant her authority to deal with his interest in property.
“The rage and revulsion of society to this crime must be, and shall be, reflected in the sentence of this court,” Justice Kissoon said.
As the judge imposed the death sentence, everyone stood in silence.

Confession
Prosecution witness Police Inspector Devon Lowe had testified that Lewis give Police a caution statement in which he confessed to killing the businessman on the instruction of the businessman’s daughter, who had promised him $6 million, a house, a car, and a piece of land.
Lewis, Inspector Lowe said, told ranks that Bibi wanted her father dead because, unlike her other siblings, she did not get any of his assets.
“He [Habiboodean] alone went sitting down in a chair, and he ask me what I doing in the house, and I tell he he daughter send me to kill him. Then I start fuh cuff he up on he neck, chest and belly, and he stop move,” Inspector Lowe said as he read aloud Lewis’s statement in court.
Inspector Lowe testified that Lewis had told him that after he had killed the man, he asked Bibi about his $6 million payment and the other items she had promised him, but she told him that she had to go to the bank. According to the Police Inspector, Lewis related that the woman paid him only $5000.
The murder accused told Police ranks that shortly after, a man by the name of “John” gave him another $5000 and told him to go away in the “bush”, and that everything would be okay upon his return.
The Police witness said Lewis told him, “So I guh way to Puruni Backdam. Two years after I come back, I hear the matter finish, and I ask John what happened to my car, my money, and house and land, and he tell me the money done on lawyer and tuck shop, and I ain’t got nothing to get. That was it, and I never ask back for anything, and I never see back the woman.
“Dem take advantage of me cause I deh young and didn’t thinking straight. I even hear my uncle Michael get $7 million from [Bibi] for this same wuk. I did lash [her] father in he head with a wood, and I throw away the wood at the back of the yard,” Lewis had told detectives in the caution statement.

I never did that
However, Bibi, in her defence, denied knowing Lewis prior to her father’s death. Her lawyer, Roger Yearwood, had asked her, “Did you at any time tell [Lewis] that you would give him $6 million, house, land and car fuh done your father?” The woman responded in the negative.
Yearwood again asked, “Were you in any way involved in the death of your father?” Bibi answered, “Sir, I never do that, sir.”
In telling her side of the story, Bibi also refuted Inspector Lowe’s assertion of a confrontation being held between her and her co-accused at the CID Headquarters.
Lewis was represented by Attorney-at-law Latchmie Rahamat.