The sen­tenc­ing of two men con­vict­ed of bru­tal­ly mur­der­ing six-year-old Sean Luke as teenagers has been post­poned once again. 

Akeel Mitchell and Richard Cha­too were sched­uled to be sen­tenced by High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds, yes­ter­day morn­ing, but pros­e­cu­tors and de­fence at­tor­neys were no­ti­fied that it was de­ferred un­til 2 pm, next Wednes­day. The sen­tenc­ing ex­er­cise was ini­tial­ly due to take place on Au­gust 23, but it was ad­journed due to the late dis­clo­sure of the duo’s bio-so­cial re­ports. 

Mitchell and Cha­too’s at­tor­neys have sub­mit­ted that in cal­cu­lat­ing the sen­tence Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds should start with sen­tences of 18 and 20 years and 15 to 18 years, re­spec­tive­ly. 

Pros­e­cu­tors claimed that the start­ing point should be sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er with each fac­ing be­tween 30 and 35 years in prison. While the manda­to­ry sen­tence for mur­der is the death penal­ty, such can not be ap­plied to Mitchell and Chaitoo as they were mi­nors when Luke was killed. 

In sen­tenc­ing the duo, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds would set the manda­to­ry min­i­mum each would have to serve be­fore they are el­i­gi­ble for pe­ri­od­ic sen­tence re­views.  If the judge hear­ing their even­tu­al sen­tence re­views is sat­is­fied that they have been re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed and are fit to re­turn to so­ci­ety, they may be re­leased.  

Luke, of Hen­ry Street, Or­ange Val­ley Road in Cou­va, went miss­ing on the evening of March 26, 2006, and his de­com­pos­ing body was found two days lat­er. An au­top­sy re­vealed that he died from in­ter­nal in­juries and bleed­ing aris­ing out of be­ing sodom­ized with sug­ar­cane stalk. Cha­too, who was 16-years-old at the time, and 13-year-old Mitchell, who is the step­son of Cha­too’s broth­er, were charged with the crime. 

On Ju­ly 23, this year both Mitchell and Cha­too were found guilty of mur­der­ing the boy, more than fif­teen years af­ter the in­ci­dent oc­curred.

Cha­too and Mitchell have al­ready sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to ap­peal their con­vic­tions. Mitchell is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ran­dall Raphael and Kir­by Joseph, while Evans Welch, Kel­ston Pope and Gabriel Her­nan­dez rep­re­sent­ed Cha­too. Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal, An­ju Bho­la and Sophia Sandy-Smith are pros­e­cut­ing.