Fran­cis Joseph

Con­vict­ed killer Ronald Tewarie will no longer have the fear of go­ing to the gal­lows. Yes­ter­day, Rus­sell Mar­tineau, SC, lead coun­sel for the State, in­di­cat­ed that Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Mar­tin Joseph pro­posed to ad­vise Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards to com­mute Tewarie's death sen­tence to life im­pris­on­ment. As a re­sult, Tewarie's con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion chal­leng­ing any plans to ex­e­cute him has been put to Jan­u­ary 28, 2010, for a sta­tus re­port on the com­mu­ta­tion.

The mat­ter came up be­fore Jus­tice Pe­ter Ra­jku­mar in the Port-of-Spain High Court. Ap­pear­ing for Tewarie are Dou­glas Mendes, SC, Regi­nald Ar­mour and Ravi Heffes-Doon. Tewarie's case was a touch-and-go one as the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee on the Pow­er of Par­don (Mer­cy Com­mit­tee) was sched­ul­ing meet­ings to de­cide Tewarie's fate, just days short of his five years on death row since his con­vic­tion. Tewarie, 39, for­mer­ly of Blue Basin Road, Diego Mar­tin, was sen­tenced to death by Jus­tice Ra­jen­dra Nar­ine in the Port-of-Spain As­sizes on Au­gust 4, 2004, for the mur­der of his sis­ter-in-law, Pol­ly Ram­nar­ine, at Blue Basin Riv­er, on March 8, 2001. It was al­leged that Tewarie drowned Ram­nar­ine in the pres­ence of her daugh­ter, Meena.

Tewarie's le­gal team had pe­ti­tioned the High Court for an in­ter­im or­der seek­ing to have the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee's meet­ing stalled un­til Tewarie's pe­ti­tion to the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights was de­ter­mined. They ar­gued that un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, due process was manda­to­ry, and as such, Tewarie was en­ti­tled to re­tain the hu­man rights re­port which need­ed to be re­viewed by the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee. Not­ing that the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee's meet­ing would be un­law­ful if it pro­ceed­ed, lawyers said the Privy Coun­cil es­tab­lished be­yond a doubt that the ex­e­cu­tion of a pris­on­er "while a mat­ter is pend­ing is un­law­ful."

Un­der Sec­tion 89 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the Mer­cy Com­mit­tee, head­ed by the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, meets be­fore the min­is­ter ad­vis­es the Pres­i­dent, on whether or not, a con­vict on death row should be par­doned, or have his death sen­tence com­mut­ed. The Mer­cy Com­mit­tee al­so com­pris­es the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and four oth­er peo­ple ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

THE CASE

Ac­cord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion's case, Pol­ly Ram­nar­ine's head was held un­der the wa­ter by Tewarie at the Blue Basin Riv­er. Foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Hughvon des Vi­gnes said he found pieces of grav­el in her air­way, in­di­cat­ing that she was stren­u­ous­ly in­hal­ing while her face was forcibly held against the grav­el. Meena tes­ti­fied to see­ing Tewarie and her moth­er fight­ing and she saw him on top of her moth­er, who was try­ing to get away.

She said her moth­er was ly­ing on her back and Tewarie had a cut­lass in his hand. Both In­spec­tor An­tho­ny Leza­ma and Sgt God­son An­drews said Tewarie told them he pushed Ram­nar­ine's head in the wa­ter and he saw bub­bles and when it stopped bub­bling, he knew she was dead.

Leza­ma said Tewarie told him he took a cut­lass and went to the riv­er, af­ter see­ing Ram­nar­ine that morn­ing, "to buss she throat."