For­mer mur­der ac­cused and al­leged ex­tor­tion­ist Michael “Rat” Ma­haraj was grant­ed bail on five charges of de­mand­ing mon­ey by men­ace last Fri­day.

Ap­peal Court judges Gillian Lucky, Car­la Browne-An­toine, and Mi­ra Deen-Ar­mor­er were in­formed that Ma­haraj was grant­ed $450,000 bail af­ter his mat­ter was called yes­ter­day.

Af­ter he was de­nied bail in Feb­ru­ary, he ap­pealed the de­ci­sion. The mat­ter when called had to be aban­doned af­ter the court not­ed that it re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that he was grant­ed bail. His at­tor­ney, Mark Seep­er­sad, lat­er told the me­dia that his client was grant­ed bail on Fri­day and had ac­cess to it on Sat­ur­day.

Ma­haraj was one of nine men re­leased in 2024 for the 1997 mur­der of Thakoor Boodram, the broth­er of drug lord Nankissoon “Dole Chadee” Boodram.

Ma­haraj was charged joint­ly with his broth­er Den­ish, on one charge of de­mand­ing mon­ey with men­ace and sim­ple rob­bery, and grant­ed $350,000 bail. Den­ish was grant­ed $300,000 bail.

Ma­haraj was al­so charged in­de­pen­dent­ly with five counts of de­mand­ing mon­ey with men­ace and sim­ple rob­bery and was de­nied bail on those charges.

The broth­ers were sen­tenced to death, which was lat­er com­mut­ed to life im­pris­on­ment, for Thack­oor Boodram’s mur­der.

Boodram, a pig farmer, was kid­napped on De­cem­ber 20, 1997. His cap­tors de­mand­ed a ran­som, but ten days lat­er, his head was found in a whiskey box at the Ca­roni cre­ma­tion site. The rest of his body has nev­er been found.

In 2024, dur­ing a re-sen­tenc­ing, they were each cred­it­ed for the time spent in cus­tody and giv­en a one-third re­mis­sion for breach­es to their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights af­ter the prison au­thor­i­ties failed to hold four-year re­views and were lat­er freed. - Jensen La Vende