A man from east Port-of-Spain has been sen­tenced to hang for mur­der­ing a Point Fortin busi­ness­man, who he claimed sex­u­al­ly ha­rassed his friend.

In an un­usu­al move Mon­day, Ronald Cob­ham, of George Street, Port-of-Spain, chose to plead guilty to the of­fence know­ing that he would re­ceive the manda­to­ry death penal­ty.

Be­fore ac­cept­ing his guilty plea dur­ing a hear­ing at the O'Meara Ju­di­cial Cen­tre in Ari­ma, High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds point­ed out the pe­cu­liar na­ture of Cob­ham's ac­tions as typ­i­cal­ly ac­cused per­sons are on­ly al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter or felony mur­der, un­der which the death penal­ty is waived in cir­cum­stances where death oc­curs dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said: "There ap­pears to be a le­gal tra­di­tion that such per­sons should not be al­lowed to plead guilty to mur­der. How­ev­er, it re­mains com­plete­ly ac­cept­able in the right cir­cum­stances."

While be­ing ques­tioned by Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds, Cob­ham, who was wear­ing a kef­fiyeh (arab scarf) and a taqiyah or topi (a skull­cap worn by Mus­lim men), stat­ed that he was not threat­ened or co­erced in­to mak­ing the de­ci­sion.

"Since I be­came in­car­cer­at­ed, I found re­li­gion. I want to bring clo­sure to the case. I just want to say I am sor­ry and to try to find some for­give­ness in the fu­ture," Cob­ham said.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds stat­ed that Cob­ham's case demon­strat­ed the need for Par­lia­ment to cat­e­gorise mur­der in­to dif­fer­ent de­grees with the manda­to­ry death penal­ty re­main­ing in cer­tain cir­cum­stances.

"It would pro­mote greater ef­fi­cien­cy through more plea dis­cus­sions and agree­ments," she said.

Not­ing that sev­er­al Cari­com coun­tries in­clud­ing Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, Bar­ba­dos, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines had al­ready made the change, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said: "We can choose what ver­sion we pre­fer and can leave the death penal­ty in the dis­cre­tion of a judge."

Stat­ing that the death penal­ty re­mains valid law de­spite nu­mer­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds point­ed out that it is not be­ing ex­e­cut­ed and sen­tences are au­to­mat­i­cal­ly com­mut­ed up­on the com­ple­tion of the five-year law­ful pe­ri­od for ex­e­cu­tions un­der the land­mark Privy Coun­cil rul­ing in the Ja­maican case of Pratt and Mor­gan.

She not­ed that un­til sen­tences are "in­vari­ably" com­mut­ed, death row pris­on­ers are de­nied fa­cil­i­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ford­ed to oth­er con­vict­ed pris­on­ers in­clud­ing vis­i­tors and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes.

Cob­ham was charged with mur­der­ing 40-year-old Mar­vin Camp­bell on Ju­ly 11, 2014.

Camp­bell was shot and killed at a bar in Ves­signy Vil­lage, La Brea, which he op­er­at­ed.

On the day of the in­ci­dent, Cob­ham was re­port­ed­ly asked by his friend to ac­com­pa­ny him to pur­chase a cra­dle arm for his car.

The friend lat­er told po­lice that they did not find the part in cen­tral Trinidad and they drove to Point Fortin.

Af­ter dis­cov­er­ing the store in Point Fortin was closed, the duo pur­chased food and sev­er­al rounds of beers.

While on their re­turn jour­ney, Cob­ham asked his friend to stop at Camp­bell's bar.

Al­though his friend want­ed to leave, Cob­ham kept pur­chas­ing drinks un­til Camp­bell ar­rived.

Cob­ham then walked up to him and shot him three times be­fore re­turn­ing to his friend's car.

While his friend claimed that he re­mon­strat­ed Cob­ham for what he did, he drove away as in­struct­ed.

As po­lice of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to in­ter­cept the ve­hi­cle, Cob­ham threw the gun out of the win­dow.

How­ev­er, it was even­tu­al­ly re­cov­ered.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day's hear­ing, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds asked Cob­ham if he was will­ing to dis­close his mo­tive for Camp­bell's mur­der as he was not ob­lig­at­ed to.

He agreed with­out hes­i­ta­tion.

"I had a fe­male friend who used to work for him and he went round her. She told me about it and I de­cid­ed to take it in­to my own hands," he claimed.

Cob­ham was rep­re­sent­ed by Avionne Bruno Ma­son and Col­in El­bourne, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers' De­part­ment (PDD). Pros­e­cu­tor Char­maine Samuel rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).