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Thursday, May 22, 2025

Convicted killer loses appeal and claim for $1bn

by

Derek Achong
2242 days ago
20190402

A death row in­mate has lost his nov­el ap­peal seek­ing to over­turn his con­vic­tion for mur­der­ing an el­der­ly cou­ple and seek­ing $1 bil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for ma­li­cious pros­e­cu­tion and false im­pris­on­ment.

De­liv­er­ing judge­ment in the mul­ti-faceted ap­peal at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon, Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine and Gre­go­ry Smith re­ject­ed all 12 grounds raised by Mukesh Chan­dra­dath.

In his ap­peal, Chan­dra­dath, who rep­re­sent­ed him­self, made a se­ries of seem­ing­ly out­landish com­plaints against the po­lice of­fi­cers who in­ves­ti­gat­ed his case, the pros­e­cu­tors who ap­peared in his tri­als and the judges who presided over them.

Chan­dra­dath was able to pur­sue the ap­peal with the as­sis­tance of the judges and us­ing grounds which were raised in a se­ries of let­ters which in­clud­ed ex­cerpts from le­gal texts.

Chan­dra­dath was con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing Sel­wyn Grant, 65, and his 70-year-old wife Ur­su­la In­nis at their home at Allen Dri­ve, Syne Vil­lage, Pe­nal in 2011.

The cou­ple’s de­com­pos­ing and head­less bod­ies were dis­cov­ered by their grand­son on Sep­tem­ber 16, 1999.

Grant was found un­der an aban­doned tank in the yard and his head was found in a bag se­cured by wire. In­nis’ body was found in a bath­tub in the bath­room, while her sev­ered head was found in a bag float­ing in a wa­ter tank.

In his ap­peal, Chan­dra­dath claimed that po­lice tam­pered with ev­i­dence in­clud­ing a post mortem re­port pre­pared by then pathol­o­gist Dr Ram­nath Chan­du­lal. He claimed that with­out the tam­pered doc­u­ment, the State would have been un­able to prove the cause of death for the vic­tims.

He al­so al­leged that his for­mer de­fence at­tor­neys and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) col­lud­ed to­geth­er to with­hold the ev­i­dence of the tam­per­ing at his tri­als.

He al­so claimed that po­lice fab­ri­cat­ed an al­leged con­fes­sion state­ment, which was used against him when he was con­vict­ed dur­ing his sec­ond tri­al in 2011.

Chan­dra­dath, who needs cataract surgery, al­so claimed that his for­mer de­fence at­tor­neys con­spired with prison of­fi­cials to blind him so that he would be un­able to present sub­mis­sions in the ap­peal.

The State was rep­re­sent­ed by Tra­vers Sinanan and An­gel­i­ca Teelucks­ingh-Ra­moutar.


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