Five men were today sentenced to a total of 330 years in prison for the murder of carpenter Faiyaz Narinedatt.
Each of the accused was given a sentence of 60 years imprisonment for the murder and an additional six years each for the brutal way in which they carried out the heinous crime.
The trial into the murder of Narinedatt, at the Berbice High Court, ended in November last year with a 12-member jury returning a guilty verdict.
On trial before Justice Navindra Singh were Orlando Dickie, Radesh Motie, Diodath Datt, Harri Paul Parsram, and Niran Yacoob. The jury had delivered unanimous guilty verdicts in relation to each of the five men.
Police stated that between October 31 and November 1, 2016, in the county of Berbice, they murdered Faiyaz Narinedatt, a 26-year-old father of two.
Upon their arraignment, the quintet had pleaded not guilty to a joint murder indictment. Murseline Bacchus, SC, and Attorney-at-Law Arudranauth Gossai represented the now convicted man. Attor ney-at-Law Latchmie Rahamat was the special prosecutor.
During the trial, four eyewitnesses were among those to give testimonies.
It was revealed that on the night of October 31, 2016, Narinedatt attended a party hosted by US-based Guyanese businessman, Marcus Bisram at his home.
It was also revealed that at some point when Narinedatt left to use the washroom, Bisram followed him and allegedly began making sexual advances to him by touching his penis.
The carpenter rejected the advances by telling Bisram, “Me don’t go in for man. Me got wife and children”. With Bisram refusing to stop, Narinedatt slapped him and walked away.
It was reported that an upset Bisram walked to the front of his yard where he informed Dickie, Motie, Datt, Parsram and Yacoob, that Narinedatt had slapped him and that they must “kill um dead”.
As such, the carpenter was severely beaten with pieces of wood and his lifeless body dumped on the Number 70 Village, Corentyne, Berbice Public Road. One of the men then used his car to drive over Narinedatt’s body to make it appear like a vehicular accident.
Meanwhile, Bisram was extradited to Guyana to face a charge for the carpenter’s killing.
However, at the end of two separate Preliminary Inquiries (PI), he was discharged/freed, because of insufficient evidence. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, would thereafter step in, directing the Magistrate to commit Bisram to face a trial at the High Court.
The businessman challenged the DPP’s directive, which was subsequently quashed by a High Court Judge, who also barred Ali-Hack from proffering a murder indictment against him.
An appeal against the Judge’s decision was filed by the DPP to the Court of Appeal of Guyana, which overturned the lower court’s decision, ordering that Bisram be arrested and tried.
But Bisram then challenged the local appeal court’s ruling at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
In the end, the apex court restored the High Court Judge’s decision, but ruled that nothing prevented the DPP from having Bisram re-arrested and charged again if fresh evidence is obtained linking him to the murder.
