DEREK ACHONG

The Court of Ap­peal has or­dered a re­tri­al for a 47-year-old man ac­cused of tor­tur­ing and beat­ing four-year-old Amy Emi­ly An­na­muntho­do to death over 15 years ago.

De­liv­er­ing an oral de­ci­sion dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing, a short while ago, Ap­pel­late Judges Al­ice Yorke-Soo Hon, Mark Mo­hammed, and Mal­colm Holdip, who up­held Mar­lon King's ap­peal against his con­vic­tion, last month, ruled that he should face an­oth­er tri­al.

"We are sat­is­fied that the in­ter­est of jus­tice would be serve by so or­der­ing," said Jus­tice Mo­hammed, who de­liv­ered the pan­el's unan­i­mous de­ci­sion.

To al­le­vi­ate King's con­cerns over the length of time it may take for a re­tri­al, the pan­el or­dered that his case be placed on a judge's tri­al list to be heard ex­pe­di­tious­ly.

The pan­el al­so in­di­cat­ed that the case should come up for case man­age­ment by Au­gust 9th.

King is ac­cused of mur­der­ing Amy Emi­ly An­na­muntho­do at his home in Ste Madeleine Road, Mara­bel­la, on May 15, 2006.

An­na­muntho­do, who was King's step­daugh­ter, was burnt with cig­a­rettes on her vagi­na, in­ner thigh, and fore­arm an hour be­fore she died. She suf­fered mul­ti­ple in­ter­nal and ex­ter­nal in­juries through­out her body, in­clud­ing a bro­ken rib and bruised or­gans.

In its de­ci­sion, last month, the ap­peal pan­el ruled that for­mer Pres­i­dent and High Court Judge An­tho­ny Car­mona had made sev­er­al er­rors when he presided over King's tri­al in 2012.

It ruled that in sum­ming up the case to the ju­ry that con­vict­ed King, Car­mona mis­di­rect­ed them on the ev­i­dence of King's ex-wife Lou-Ann Davis, who tes­ti­fied over do­mes­tic abuse she al­leged­ly en­dured, and his neigh­bour An­tho­ny Rocke, who tes­ti­fied that he saw King punch­ing the child 20 to 30 times while she hung from a cloth tied to her hair and at­tached to a door ledge.

She was clad in un­der­wear and her mouth was gagged, ac­cord­ing to Rocke.

Dur­ing the tri­al, King claimed that he had left the child with her moth­er and Rocke, and sug­gest­ed that he (Rocke) was in fact the cul­prit.

King was rep­re­sent­ed by Pe­ter Carter and Deli­cia Hel­wig-Robert­son, while Tra­vers Sinanan is rep­re­sent­ing the State.