DEREK ACHONG
Senior Reporter
A 74-year-old man from Siparia, who killed his three-year-old son and disposed of his body almost four decades ago, will have to serve over three more years in prison before he can be released.
Phinis Warren was given the death penalty when he was convicted of the heinous crime in 1991, but he was re-sentenced today by High Court Judge Hayden St Clair-Douglas to 41 years in prison.
Justice St Clair-Douglas agreed with the 45-year starting sentence that was suggested by both Warren's lawyer, Davina Inalsingh, and prosecutor Tricia Samuel.
He then gave a four-year discount based on Warren's remorse, exemplary disciplinary record and attempts at rehabilitation during his 37-year stay in prison.
Warren was left with three years and five months left to serve as he was credited for his previous time in custody.
Warren was convicted of murdering his son, Ronald Koylass, in September 1988.
Neighbours claimed that they suspected Koylass, who was the youngest of Warren's four children, was being abused months before his death as they saw him with suspicious bruises on separate occasions.
One neighbour who helped take care of the child made a report to police after she went to look for him at Warren's home several times and did not see him.
When Warren was initially questioned by police, he claimed that he gave the child to a man named "Belcon".
Warren claimed that he did not know where the man lived and could not give a description of him.
Warren gave another story when he was arrested and interrogated.
He claimed that he took the child when he went to do a landscaping job and found him dead after briefly leaving him unsupervised.
He claimed that he panicked and decided to dispose of the body by placing it in a duffle bag, putting it on a bamboo raft and releasing it into the Moora Dam.
He claimed that he saw the raft at another area of the shore of the dam the following day. He claimed that Koylass' body was missing from the bag.
Warren took homicide detectives to the area of the dam, but the child's body was never found.
Koylass' sister testified against their father and claimed that he, Warren, beat her sibling before she left to go to school on the last day she saw him alive.
She claimed that when she returned home, she saw her brother lying unconscious on a bed and Warren took him away.
She claimed that her father told her and her siblings that he had given their brother to a man and instructed them to repeat the story if questioned.
Warren appealed his conviction on the basis that his trial was unfair. However, his challenge was rejected by both the Court of Appeal and the Privy Council.
The sentence was eventually commuted to 75 years in prison based on the landmark Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan, which prohibits the death penalty from being carried out more than five years after being passed.
Warren applied to be re-sentenced based on a recent case in which the country's highest court ruled that prisoners with commuted sentences should receive definitive terms based on the unique circumstances of their cases instead of blanket sentences, as was passed on Warren and other murder accused who escaped execution.
