Derek Achong

A 66-year-old man from San Fer­nan­do, who chopped his nephew to death over a fam­i­ly prop­er­ty dis­pute, has been re­leased af­ter spend­ing a lit­tle over 15 years in prison.

High Court Judge Tri­cia Hudlin-Coop­er or­dered Han­iff Mo­hammed’s re­lease as she sen­tenced him late last week.

Jus­tice Hudlin-Coop­er ruled that Mo­hammed had al­ready served his sen­tence for manslaugh­ter while await­ing tri­al.

Mo­hammed, a for­mer Ca­roni (1975) Lim­it­ed work­er, was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der­ing his 24-year-old nephew, In­shan Dol­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to ev­i­dence in the case, the crime stemmed from a long-stand­ing prop­er­ty dis­pute be­tween Mo­hammed and his sib­lings, in­clud­ing Dol­ly’s fa­ther.

Dol­ly’s fa­ther, Bis­ram, was in charge of a par­cel of joint ten­an­cy land that his and Mo­hammed’s par­ents had left them and their nine sib­lings.

Mo­hammed al­leged­ly pro­claimed him­self the sole own­er of the land and rent­ed out a por­tion. Mo­hammed re­port­ed­ly had a habit of hawk­ing and spit­ting at Dol­ly and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers, who chal­lenged his claim to the land.

On May 20, 2009, Bis­ram went to Mo­hammed’s home af­ter his wife told him that his son was in­volved in an ar­gu­ment with Mo­hammed.

Bis­ram and an­oth­er broth­er at­tempt­ed to dif­fuse the sit­u­a­tion and lead Dol­ly away.

Dol­ly picked up a stone while walk­ing away but put it down af­ter be­ing cau­tioned by his fa­ther.

Dol­ly broke away and ran to­wards Mo­hammed, who drew a cut­lass and chopped him on the neck and back. Dol­ly fell in­to a near­by drain.

He was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment but suc­cumbed to his in­juries.

Mo­hammed was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der but was al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter by provo­ca­tion based on a plea agree­ment ne­go­ti­at­ed with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) by his lawyer Michelle Ali of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence, Jus­tice Hudlin-Coop­er did not agree with the 24-year start­ing sen­tence that was agreed to un­der the agree­ment.

She in­creased the start­ing sen­tence to 30 years be­fore ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count based on his guilty plea.

Jus­tice Hudlin-Coop­er gave a fur­ther one-year dis­count based on Mo­hammed’s med­ical con­di­tions, one year for his age, and two years for his re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion while on re­mand.

Af­ter de­duct­ing the time he spent on re­mand, Mo­hammed was left with four months and 18 days left to serve. How­ev­er, Jus­tice Hudlin-Coop­er used her dis­cre­tion to sen­tence him to time served.

She al­so ad­vised Mo­hammed to man­age his anger as he re­joins so­ci­ety.

“You made your anger get the best of you and for 15-plus years you sat in prison. You still could not en­joy that piece of land for 15 plus years,” she said.

The DPP’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Chanelle Moe and Jen­nifer Os­borne. Mo­hammed was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Aixa Ed­wards.