Farmer to be sentenced next Thursday for cutlass attack on reputed wife

Fazil Osman of Mahaica, East Coast Demerara (ECD) will be sentenced next Thursday for a brutal cutlass attack he had launched on his reputed wife in 2019.
A sentencing hearing for the 44-year-old farmer, which was scheduled for Thursday (yesterday), has been deferred until next week because Osman has disputed information that he had previously been charged with abusing a former partner and her toddler, who had sustained injuries to an eye.
On Thursday, a probation officer informed the court that that charge had been dismissed after that former partner had refused to testify against Osman. Asked by Osman’s lawyer Teriq Mohammed, who said he was unaware of his client having previously been charged, who had provided her with this information, the probation officer disclosed that ranks at the Mahaica Police Station had so informed her.
As such, Judge Jo-Ann Barlow refused to go ahead with sentencing Osman, who is on remand, and asked both the prosecution and defence to look into whether the convict had indeed previously been charged. State Counsel Latifah Elliot is the prosecutor in this case.

Earlier this month, during his arraignment in the Demerara High Court, Osman had pleaded guilty to attempted murder. He admitted that, on February 24, 2019, he had unlawfully and maliciously wounded a 24-year-old woman at Hand-en-Veldt, Mahaica with intent to commit murder. The mother of two was attacked and chopped after she had made a report at the Mahaica Police Station that Osman had beaten her.
Based on reports, the abused woman had been instructed by the investigating rank to return home to Osman, who had accused her of stealing his money when she had gone to their home to uplift her clothes. On the day in question, she had gone back home in the company of a Rural Constable to identify Osman, in order that he be served with a restraining order.
Osman had used that opportunity to attack the woman, chopping her with a cutlass and causing the Rural Constable to flee for her safety. Osman and the woman had been living together for six months.