Derek Achong

Two sib­lings, con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a man and at­tempt­ing to mur­der his broth­er and cousin af­ter forc­ing them to help process their mar­i­jua­na har­vest, have been sen­tenced to 28 years in prison.

In June, John and Vic­tor Flo­res were con­vict­ed of mur­der, at­tempt­ed mur­der, and firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion at the end of the vir­tu­al judge-alone tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas.

While the sib­lings were giv­en the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for the mur­der charge, St Clair-Dou­glas stat­ed that they still had to be sen­tenced for the less­er of­fences.

St Clair-Dou­glas de­cid­ed on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tences for the sib­lings dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing on Wednes­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the sib­lings were ac­cused of mur­der­ing Seecha­ran Sankar and at­tempt­ing to mur­der Sankar’s broth­er Dood­nath al­so known as Anil, and their cousin Ro­han “John­ny” Ram­nar­ine on May 24, 2010.

Tes­ti­fy­ing in the tri­al in March, Dood­nath and Ram­nar­ine claimed that they left their home at Charu­ma Vil­lage in Biche to har­vest green ba­nanas from Ram­nar­ine’s gar­den which was lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance away.

Sankar claimed that they were in the process of har­vest­ing the pro­duce when they were con­front­ed by the Flo­res broth­ers, who were armed with shot­guns.

He claimed that the broth­ers in­struct­ed them to drop their cut­lass­es and told them that they had come to kill Ram­nar­ine to send a mes­sage to his (Ram­nar­ine) broth­er, who was in prison at the time.

He claimed that the broth­ers then forced them to hike through a forest­ed area and three mar­i­jua­na fields be­fore they ar­rived at a camp-site at the peak of a small moun­tain. Sankar claimed that the broth­ers forced them to trim the dried mar­i­jua­na flow­ers for al­most two hours be­fore the old­er one, who he knew from the vil­lage, used Ram­ma­rine’s cell­phone to make a call.

Af­ter the trim­ming was com­plet­ed, one broth­er point­ed his gun at Ram­nar­ine and shot him once in his chest be­fore turn­ing the bar­rel to Sankar’s broth­er and shoot­ing him once in his back.

The oth­er broth­er then shot in Sankar’s di­rec­tion but he was grazed on the side of his head.

He claimed that he jumped from the cliff in a bid to es­cape the men.

He claimed that when he land­ed at the bot­tom of the cliff, he saw Ram­nar­ine, who ap­peared to have al­so jumped af­ter be­ing shot.

Sankar claimed that he as­sist­ed Ram­nar­ine in walk­ing as he was bleed­ing from his mouth and chest and they made their way to a riv­er.

The duo then fol­lowed the riv­er’s path un­til they made their way back to the vil­lage, where they con­tact­ed their rel­a­tives and the po­lice.

The Flo­res broth­ers were de­tained days af­ter the in­ci­dent. One was held in a taxi trav­el­ling to Ma­yaro and a shot­gun, which was lat­er iden­ti­fied as the mur­der weapon through bal­lis­tic test­ing, was found in his pos­ses­sion.

They were dis­charged by a mag­is­trate dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the case but were sub­se­quent­ly re-in­dict­ed by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Dur­ing the tri­al, both broth­ers de­nied any wrong­do­ing as they pro­vid­ed al­i­bis.

John claimed that he went to a friend’s house in Mara­cas/St Joseph to col­lect some mon­ey, while Vic­tor claimed that he was in Ma­yaro.

In de­cid­ing the case, St Clair-Dou­glas re­ject­ed the al­i­bis as he ac­cept­ed the ev­i­dence of the sur­viv­ing rel­a­tives.

In his rul­ing, Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas stat­ed that a 28-year sen­tence for at­tempt­ed mur­der was ap­pro­pri­ate as the broth­ers’ ac­tions demon­strat­ed “a cal­lous dis­re­gard for hu­man life”.

“It was not a chaot­ic se­ries of events, there was a plan,” he said.

While he not­ed that the broth­ers had mul­ti­ple con­vic­tions for vi­o­lent crimes, he stat­ed that he did not con­sid­er them in de­cid­ing on the sen­tences as they (the crimes) oc­curred more than 15 years be­fore they were charged for the at­tack on the rel­a­tives.

St Clair-Dou­glas stat­ed that there was no ba­sis to dif­fer­en­ti­ate the sen­tences for each broth­er as they par­tic­i­pat­ed equal­ly.

As part of the sen­tenc­ing ex­er­cise, St Clair-Dou­glas de­duct­ed the nine years they spent on re­mand be­fore be­ing con­vict­ed of their sen­tences.

He ruled that the broth­ers should re­ceive eight-year sen­tences for firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion but stat­ed that they had al­ready com­plet­ed their sen­tences on re­mand.

John was rep­re­sent­ed by Rekha Ramjit while Ramesh Deena rep­re­sent­ed his younger broth­er. The case was pros­e­cut­ed by Maria Lyons-Ed­wards.