Kumu man gets 5 years for killing brother

Twenty-one-year-old Gragery Miguel has been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for unlawfully killing his brother, Wilfred Stephen, during a family dispute at Kumu Village, Central Rupununi. Miguel had initially been indicted for murder, but he opted to plead guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter when he appeared before Chief Justice (ag) Navindra Singh at the High Court in Demerara, after consulting with his attorney, Madan Kissoon.
The case was prosecuted by State Counsel Christopher Belfield, who was assisted by State Counsel Praneta Seeraj and State Counsel Geneva Wills. The court heard that the fatal encounter occurred on the night of July 31, 2023, while the brothers, who had been estranged for several months, were drinking with relatives at their uncle’s home in Kumu. An argument erupted around 21:00h., but appeared to have been settled shortly after.
Later that night however, tensions resurfaced at their mother’s home where Stephen had gone to collect food. A confrontation involving the brothers’ stepfather led Stephen to intervene in an effort to protect his mother. Miguel then confronted him, and another scuffle broke out between the two men. Their mother managed to separate them, but Miguel ran into a nearby house, armed himself with a steel-point arrow, and chased after Stephen.
As Stephen fell, Miguel stabbed him in the right side of his back and fled the scene. Stephen died from his injuries about an hour later. Owing to the remote nature of the community, and severely limited access to communication and transportation, relatives were unable to promptly alert the authorities. Police eventually arrived in the village at around 2:00 a.m. on August 1, 2023, and Stephen’s body was later transported to the Lethem Regional Hospital.
Miguel was arrested the following day. In a video-recorded statement to investigators, he admitted to stabbing his brother but claimed he was intoxicated at the time and did not intend to kill him. A post-mortem examination later revealed that the steel-point arrow had penetrated Stephen’s chest cavity, severing major blood vessels and causing fatal internal bleeding.
In handing down the sentence, Chief Justice Singh said he started from a baseline of 24 years’ imprisonment for the offence. He then applied several deductions, including a substantial reduction for Miguel’s early guilty plea, further time off based on a favourable probation report, additional consideration for what the court accepted as genuine remorse, and a further reduction in light of Miguel’s youthful age. These combined reductions brought the sentence down to five years’ imprisonment.
The Chief Justice ordered that Miguel must be credited for the period he has already spent on remand while awaiting the conclusion of the case.