Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 67-year-old man from Biche has ad­mit­ted to killing his friend dur­ing a fight over a bot­tle of bay rum in 2016. 

An­drew “Blakie” Kalicha­ran was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der but was on Tues­day al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter based on di­min­ished re­spon­si­bil­i­ty based on a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP). 

The agree­ment was con­sid­ered and ap­proved by High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds dur­ing a hear­ing yes­ter­day. Kalicha­ran is now ex­pect­ed to be sen­tenced on Thurs­day. 

Ac­cord­ing to the sum­ma­ry of facts in the case, Kalicha­ran was ac­cused of killing 56-year-old Jankoo Sylvester on Ju­ly 13, 2016. 

The duo was lim­ing in a shed in Plum Mi­tan when they had an ar­gu­ment over a bot­tle of bay rum, which is mar­ket­ed as cologne or as­trin­gent but is some­times con­sumed as an al­co­holic bev­er­age de­spite warn­ings from man­u­fac­tur­ers against such a prac­tice. 

Af­ter Sylvester’s body was found the next morn­ing by the own­er of the shed, Kalicha­ran claimed that he did not re­mem­ber what tran­spired in de­tail but ad­mit­ted that he hit Sylvester with a piece of wood dur­ing the ar­gu­ment. 

“I hit him five times with a piece of wood. He hit me first and I fall asleep,” he re­port­ed­ly told po­lice. 

A post-mortem per­formed by foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Valery Alexan­drov ruled that Sylvester died of blunt force trau­ma to his head. 

Dur­ing the hear­ing, a vic­tim im­pact state­ment from Sylvester’s broth­er Pan­cham was read. 

He claimed that his broth­er did not have any chil­dren but was the favourite un­cle of his six sib­lings’ chil­dren. 

De­scrib­ing his broth­er’s death as “vi­cious, mer­ci­less, and bru­tal”, he called for Kalicha­ran to be held ac­count­able. 

“His death has had an im­pact on our lives ... His death still angers us,” he said. 

Kalicha­ran is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Chimere Gib­son-Wa­di and Khadi­ja Sinanan, while the DPP’s Of­fice is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Char­maine Samuel.