Fran­cis Joseph

A 51-year-old man who was sen­tenced to death for killing his step­son will not face the hang­man.

Christ­na Bas­deo, a fa­ther of four, will be re­moved from death row as the Court of Ap­peal quashed his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence and sub­sti­tut­ed it with manslaugh­ter. Bas­deo will now serve a 15-year sen­tence for the crime. In a sev­en-page judg­ment, the Court of Ap­peal, com­pris­ing Jus­tices Paula Mae Weekes, Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon and Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine, agreed that Bas­deo was not af­ford­ed a de­fence of provo­ca­tion at his tri­al. Bas­deo was sen­tenced to death by Jus­tice Her­bert Vol­ney in the San Fer­nan­do High Court on Oc­to­ber 27, 2005, for the mur­der of his step­son, Kyle Bas­deo, on No­vem­ber 10, 2003, at their home at Crys­tal View, Princes Town.

He was rep­re­sent­ed at the ap­peal by Dana See­ta­hal, SC, and Thris­tle Khan, while As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Wayne Ra­jban­sie ap­peared for the State. Ac­cord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion's case, Bas­deo's wife, Toy, had re­port­ed to the po­lice on No­vem­ber 10, 2003, that her hus­band had planassed her and Kyle with the flat side of the cut­lass. PC Rawle Sookdeo went to the home to in­ves­ti­gate the re­port and found Bas­deo in an in­tox­i­cat­ed state. He cau­tioned Bas­deo and told him to re­port to the po­lice sta­tion when he was sober. Af­ter Sookdeo left the house, an ar­gu­ment en­sued be­tween the cou­ple that Kyle was not his bi­o­log­i­cal son. It was then that Kyle was chopped to death.

At the ap­peal, See­ta­hal said the tri­al judge erred in deal­ing with the is­sue of provo­ca­tion. She said the judge had mis­rep­re­sent­ed the ev­i­dence of the pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness, Oma Bas­deo, in re­la­tion to when Bas­deo might have dis­cov­ered that Kyle was not his bi­o­log­i­cal child.

See­ta­hal ar­gued that the judge ef­fec­tive­ly ex­clud­ed from the ju­ry's con­sid­er­a­tion six oth­er fac­tors which were per­ti­nent to the is­sue of provo­ca­tion. The State con­ced­ed that this ground had mer­it and there­fore Bas­deo was de­prived of a prop­er con­sid­er­a­tion of the is­sue of provo­ca­tion. The State was al­so of the view that the ev­i­dence of provo­ca­tion was co­gent and com­pelling and there­fore the ap­peal should be al­lowed on that ground. The Ap­peal Court had to de­cide whether it had the ju­ris­dic­tion to sub­sti­tute a ver­dict of manslaugh­ter. Both See­ta­hal and Ra­jban­sie agreed that in the cir­cum­stances of the case, the Court of Ap­peal had the pow­er.

Weekes, who de­liv­ered the judg­ment, said: "We are of the view, as coun­sel are, that the for­mer course is more de­sir­able. Both the ev­i­dence at the tri­al and the more de­tailed in­for­ma­tion com­ing to this court's at­ten­tion by way of the pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer's re­port, or­dered at the ap­pel­late stage, con­vince us that if a ju­ry were prop­er­ly di­rect­ed on the is­sue, there is a strong chance that the ap­pel­lant would re­ceive the ben­e­fit of a ver­dict of manslaugh­ter in the giv­en premis­es. "It would thus be a fla­grant waste of ju­di­cial time to re­turn this mat­ter to a tri­al court," Weekes added.