Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A High Court Judge has or­dered the re­lease of a man from Ari­ma, who ad­mit­ted stab­bing his co-work­er to death dur­ing a work­place dis­pute in 2008. 

Al­fon­so Hold­er was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der­ing Miguel “Chip” Leon but was al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter by provo­ca­tion based on a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). 

Hold­er first ex­pressed in­ter­est in tak­ing the ac­tion in 2017 but the DPP’s Of­fice on­ly agreed to ac­cept his plea last month. 

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Hold­er, Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo be­gan with a start­ing point of 25 years in prison. 

She then re­duced the sen­tence by three years based on the fact that Hold­er had a clean crim­i­nal record be­fore the in­ci­dent with Leon and showed re­morse for what he did. 

She al­so not­ed that while in prison, Hold­er com­plet­ed sev­er­al pro­grammes, was bap­tised a Chris­t­ian, and served as a key­boardist for Mu­sic Vi­bra­tions—a band made up of in­mates at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Arou­ca. 

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for Hold­er’s guilty plea and de­duct­ing the time he spent on re­mand await­ing tri­al, Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo ruled that he had al­ready com­plet­ed his sen­tence and or­dered his re­lease. 

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the in­ci­dent oc­curred as Hold­er and Leon were on their lunch break at a meat pro­cess­ing plant in San Raphael in Ari­ma. 

Hold­er claimed that Leon, who he knew out­side of work, stood over him while he was eat­ing a roti and slapped it out of his hand. 

He claimed that he drew the knife and stabbed Leon three times as he saw Leon sig­nal to his friend af­ter he (Leon) ini­ti­at­ed the con­fronta­tion. 

“The man al­ways pro­vok­ing meh and to­day he come up in my face and ah lose it and I take up the knife and stab him in he chest and back,” Hold­er told the po­lice. 

Hold­er al­so claimed that Leon had stolen his broth­er’s cell­phone and threat­ened him (Hold­er) when he chal­lenged him about it. 

Hold­er’s claims of bul­ly­ing against Leon were cor­rob­o­rat­ed by three of their for­mer col­leagues, who al­so wit­nessed the stab­bing. 

Hold­er was rep­re­sent­ed by Whit­ney Franklin and Ayan­na Norville, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment.