Manslaughter verdict for man who slit taxi-driver’s throat

A 31-year-old man who slit the throat of a taxi-driver during a robbery in 2001 was freed of murder yesterday. However, Ramzan Bachan, of Guppy Hill Trace, Union Village, Mayaro, did not leave the Port-of-Spain High Court a free man, since he was found guilty of a lesser count of manslaughter by a 12-member jury. It took the jury, sitting before Justice Prakash Moosai in the First Assizes, less than a half-hour to return with the verdict. After hearing the jury’s decision, Bachan turned his head and blew a kiss at his weeping relatives in the public gallery. He was on retrial for the murder of Chaguanas taxi driver Elwyn Sampson. It was the prosecution’s case during his three-month trial that on November 21, 2001, Bachan and two men hijacked Sampson’s vehicle at the Chaguanas taxi stand, Port-of-Spain. During a brief struggle with his attackers, Sampson’s throat was slit from one side of his neck to the other cutting through his windpipe. His body was dumped in a bushy area on the Uriah Bulter Highway near Grand Bazaar.

Bachan was initially convicted of Sampson’s murder in February 2006 and was read the mandatory death penalty. A year later, his conviction was overturned by three judges of the Court of Appeal who ordered a retrial. Daniel Goolcharan, one of Bachan’s accomplices, was sentenced to a five-year prison term for his involvement in Sampson’s murder. Another man, Joshua Ramnath, was granted immunity by the office of the Director of Public Prosecution in exchange for his testimony against Bachan. In his defence Bachan claimed he played no part in Sampson’s robbery, abduction and eventual death. He said he went to lime with his two friends and was not aware of their intentions to rob Sampson. Bachan was represented by Joseph Pantor while Mauriceia Jospeh and Danielle Thompson prosecuted. He will be sentenced by Moosai next week Wednesday.