A man from Fyz­abad, who dis­guised him­self in a niqab – a face cov­er­ing worn by some Mus­lim women – to kill the moth­er of his young child in 2020, has been sen­tenced to 18 years in prison.

Vishal “Cousin” Bir­ju, of Pep­per Vil­lage, Fyz­abad, was await­ing tri­al for mur­der­ing 28-year-old Gabriel­la Dubar­ry be­fore he was re­cent­ly al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter by provo­ca­tion based on a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Bir­ju this week, Jus­tice Trevor Jones ac­cept­ed the 28-year start­ing point that was agreed to by pros­e­cu­tors and Bir­ju’s lawyers, Michelle Ali and Shuzvon Ram­dass, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment (PDD).

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a one-year de­duc­tion and ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for Bir­ju’s guilty plea, he was left with a sen­tence of 18 years.

How­ev­er, Bir­ju is ex­pect­ed to be re­leased af­ter serv­ing a lit­tle over 12 more years in prison, as the time he spent on re­mand af­ter be­ing charged and be­fore plead­ing guilty was de­duct­ed from his sen­tence.

Bir­ju was ac­cused of killing Dubar­ry at her Av­o­cat Vil­lage, Fyz­abad, home on Jan­u­ary 9, 2020.

Dubar­ry, an in­sur­ance agent, was at home with her moth­er and a rel­a­tive’s ba­by.

Her moth­er was in the kitchen when some­one dressed in all black, wear­ing a niqab with on­ly the eyes vis­i­ble, en­tered the house.

The in­trud­er point­ed a gun at her and told her to get down be­fore go­ing to her daugh­ter’s bed­room.

Dubar­ry was shot sev­er­al times, and the in­trud­er ran away.

Dubar­ry’s moth­er made a re­port to po­lice and iden­ti­fied Bir­ju as the in­trud­er based on his voice.

When Bir­ju was ar­rest­ed by po­lice he con­fessed to be­ing re­spon­si­ble.

He ad­mit­ted that his re­la­tion­ship with Dubar­ry end­ed four years be­fore the in­ci­dent and they had an eight-year-old son to­geth­er.

He ac­cused Dubar­ry of in­fi­deli­ty dur­ing their re­la­tion­ship and of block­ing him from hav­ing ac­cess to their son, who he ques­tioned the pa­ter­ni­ty of.

Dur­ing his sen­tenc­ing, Bir­ju read an apol­o­gy he had writ­ten for Dubar­ry’s rel­a­tives, who were present in court.

“I turned my son’s fairy­tale life in­to a night­mare when I took his moth­er from him. The per­son I’ve caused the most pain to was him,” he said.

“I am so, so sor­ry for the hurt that I have caused to my son and the de­ceased’s fam­i­ly,” he added.

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Jus­tice Jones ex­pressed hope that it would help de­ter such con­duct in so­ci­ety in the fu­ture.

“There must be a mes­sage sent to so­ci­ety that a woman is not the prop­er­ty of a man,” he said.

Jus­tice Jones al­so sug­gest­ed that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) re­con­sid­er ac­cept­ing pleas in cas­es that in­volve in­fi­deli­ty and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.

The DPP’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Solange De­venish and Josi­ah Soo Hon.