Sto­ries by Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A man from Pe­nal, who ad­mit­ted to help­ing tor­ture and bury alive a neigh­bour when he was a teenag­er, has been re­leased af­ter spend­ing al­most two decades on re­mand.

Dil­lion Ram­nath was re­leased on a li­cence yes­ter­day, as he was sen­tenced af­ter plead­ing guilty to mur­der be­fore High Court Judge Gail Gon­za­les.

Ram­nath and two men were ac­cused of mur­der­ing 26-year-old Toolsie Ramkissoon in Ju­ly 2006. His co-ac­cused did not plead guilty, and they are still await­ing tri­al for the crime. Ramkissoon, of Sou Sou Lands, Pe­nal, went miss­ing af­ter at­tend­ing a lime at his broth­er’s home at Pe­nal Rock Road on Ju­ly 2, 2006.

Al­most three weeks lat­er, his par­tial­ly de­com­posed body was found buried in a shal­low grave with­in walk­ing dis­tance of his broth­er’s home.

While an au­top­sy on his body could not de­ter­mine his cause of death be­cause of the stage of de­com­po­si­tion it was in, it (the au­top­sy) showed that he suf­fered mul­ti­ple in­juries, in­clud­ing bro­ken limbs, be­fore his death.

Ram­nath was able to plead guilty to the crime as he would not face the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der be­cause he was 17 years old when he helped com­mit the crime.

Un­der the Chil­dren’s Act 1925, which ap­plied at the time of Ramkissoon’s mur­der, mi­nors con­vict­ed of mur­der are to be sen­tenced at the court’s plea­sure for a min­i­mum term. They can be re­leased af­ter com­plet­ing the min­i­mum term, pro­vid­ed a judge agrees they are fit to be re­leased.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate min­i­mum term for Ram­nath, Jus­tice Gon­za­les be­gan with a start­ing point of 30 years in prison.

The rel­a­tive­ly high start­ing point was based on the gra­tu­itous vi­o­lence met­ed out to Ramkissoon and the fact that he was sus­pect­ed to have been buried alive af­ter a pro­tract­ed beat­ing.

Jus­tice Gon­za­les then ap­plied a three-year dis­count based on Ram­nath’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in sev­er­al re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes and his fail­ure to com­mit any dis­ci­pli­nary in­frac­tions whilst on re­mand.

She al­so not­ed that he came from an im­pov­er­ished fam­i­ly and did not at­tend school so he could do odd jobs to help sup­port his fam­i­ly.

Af­ter giv­ing Ram­nath a one-third dis­count for his guilty plea, he was left with a min­i­mum term of 18 years in prison.

Not­ing that Ram­nath had al­ready served the term while await­ing tri­al, Jus­tice Gon­za­les con­duct­ed a sen­tence re­view and ruled that there would be no use­ful pur­pose for his con­tin­ued de­ten­tion. She al­so not­ed that he did not ap­pear to be a dan­ger to so­ci­ety.

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Jus­tice Gon­za­les warned Ram­nath that based on his re­lease on li­cence, he would be re­ar­rest­ed and in­car­cer­at­ed for a pe­ri­od de­ter­mined by a judge if he com­mit­ted any crim­i­nal of­fence af­ter be­ing re­leased.

Ram­nath was rep­re­sent­ed by Ja­son Jack­son and Krysan Ram­bert. The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) was rep­re­sent­ed by Josanne For­rester.