Fran­cis Joseph

Two con­vict­ed killers, San­git Chait­lal and Fazal Mo­hammed, walked out of the Port-of-Spain State Prison around 4 pm yes­ter­day, af­ter they were freed by the judge at a re­sen­tenc­ing hear­ing hours ear­li­er.

Chait­lal and Mo­hammed ap­peared be­fore Jus­tice De­van Ram­per­sad in the Port-of-Spain Fifth Crim­i­nal Court. They were among nu­mer­ous death row pris­on­ers who were sen­tenced to terms of nat­ur­al life in re­sponse to the 1993 Privy Coun­cil de­ci­sion in Pratt and Mor­gan. But it turned out that the sen­tences of nat­ur­al life were un­known in law and the pris­on­ers had to be re­sen­tenced. Ram­per­sad heard sub­mis­sions from at­tor­neys for the two men, Ger­ald Ramdeen and Mark Seep­er­sad, and re­served his de­ci­sion to yes­ter­day. In re­view­ing the sen­tences, Ram­per­sad or­dered that Chait­lal serve 32 years, ef­fec­tive 1983 when he was con­vict­ed.

Mo­hammed was or­dered to serve 35 years from the date of his con­vic­tion in 1982. When cal­cu­lat­ed, it showed that both Mo­hammed and Chait­lal had ef­fec­tive­ly served their sen­tences. They were tak­en from the Hall of Jus­tice to the State Prison, where they were processed for re­lease. Ramdeen was present when his clients walked free. Mo­hammed told re­porters he was very hap­py to have been re­leased. He thanked his lawyers for as­sist­ing him, say­ing when no oth­er lawyer want­ed the case, Ramdeen and Seep­er­sad came for­ward. Met out­side the jail by his sis­ter, Mo­hammed said the first thing he had to do was to rec­on­cile with his rel­a­tives. Then, he would look for­ward to the week­end and take it from there.

Chait­lal, whose case had be­come a le­gal au­thor­i­ty in the Com­mon­wealth for no-case sub­mis­sions, was equal­ly elat­ed at his re­lease. He was al­so high in praise for his lawyers who fought a lengthy bat­tle for his free­dom. Chait­lal was found guilty on April 28, 1983, of the mur­der of Lor­ren Ram­roop, be­tween Au­gust 8 and 9, 1981 and sen­tenced to death. His ap­peal to the Court of Ap­peal was dis­missed on Ju­ly 17, 1985. His ap­pli­ca­tion for leave to ap­peal to the Ju­di­cial Com­mit­tee of the Privy Coun­cil, was dis­missed. Mo­hammed was sen­tenced to death on Feb­ru­ary 19, 1982, for the mur­der of his com­mon-law wife, Glen­da Mar­shall. His ap­peal to the Court of Ap­peal was dis­missed on Ju­ly 31, 1985, and his ap­peal to the Privy Coun­cil was dis­missed on Feb­ru­ary 5, 1990.

The death war­rant was read to Mo­hammed in 1993 for ex­e­cu­tion. But a last-minute stay of ex­e­cu­tion saved him from the hang­man. He spent 14 years on death row be­fore he was re­moved. Chait­lal spent nine years on death row. In 1994, 52 con­vict­ed killers on death row had their sen­tences com­mut­ed to nat­ur­al life. In 2004, Chait­lal and Mo­hammed com­menced pro­ceed­ings against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, chal­leng­ing the or­ders of im­pris­on­ment. The State even­tu­al­ly con­ced­ed that the or­der of im­pris­on­ment for nat­ur­al life­was un­law­ful, and that they had to be re­sen­tenced.

?BACK­GROUND

?The pros­e­cu­tion's case against Mo­hammed was that he mur­dered Mar­shall by slit­ting her throat with a ra­zor. One wit­ness said he sharp­ened the ra­zor for Mo­hammed, and an­oth­er wit­ness said he found Mar­shall ly­ing in the road bleed­ing from the throat. Chait­lal was seen by a wit­ness car­ry­ing a heavy bag on his shoul­der and go­ing in­to the bush with it. He lat­er emerged with an emp­ty bag and dis­card­ed it. The bag was lat­er found near to the area where Ram­roop's body was found.