A 31-year-old man from Bar­rack­pore has been sen­tenced to a lit­tle over 18 years in prison af­ter ad­mit­ting that he mur­dered a 75-year-old man from Pe­nal dur­ing a home in­va­sion in 2017.

Ray­wadeo Ra­jeev Ra­noo, of Cun­jal South Trace, Bar­rack­pore, re­ceived the sen­tence yes­ter­day af­ter plead­ing guilty to felony mur­der be­fore Jus­tice Mau­ri­ceia Joseph.

Un­der the felony mur­der rule, the manda­to­ry death penal­ty is waived in cir­cum­stances where death oc­curs dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence, which in most cas­es is rob­bery.

Ra­noo was ac­cused of mur­der­ing Hunter Sam­lal at his Pe­nal apart­ment in June 2017.

Sam­lal was last seen alive on June 15 and his body was found two days lat­er.

He was found with his hands and feet bound and with duct tape over his mouth and around his neck. His cell­phone and his pan­el van, con­tain­ing snacks that he and his son sold, were miss­ing.

An au­top­sy re­vealed that he died of as­phyx­ia.

Ra­noo was ar­rest­ed al­most three months lat­er af­ter a neigh­bour claimed that she saw him dri­ve away in Sam­lal’s van around the time he was killed.

She al­so claimed that she saw Ra­noo re­turn to the apart­ment with two men hours af­ter he left in Sam­lal’s van.

Ra­noo, who was rep­re­sent­ed by Ja­son Jack­son and Krysan Ram­bert, was on re­mand while he await­ed tri­al for mur­der be­fore he was al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of felony mur­der.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Ra­noo, Jus­tice Joseph be­gan with a 33-year start­ing point.

Her de­ci­sion was based on Ra­noo launch­ing a pre­med­i­tat­ed at­tack on a vul­ner­a­ble vic­tim and the vi­o­lence that Sam­lal en­dured be­fore his death.

“There was a clear dis­re­gard for hu­man life for per­son­al gain,” Jus­tice Joseph said.

“Of­ten as­so­ci­at­ed with a pro­longed and stress­ful death, as­phyx­i­a­tion is a process that by its very na­ture, in­volves a pe­ri­od of strug­gle and con­scious­ness,” she added.

Jus­tice Joseph then gave a five-year dis­count based on Ra­noo hav­ing a clean crim­i­nal record be­fore killing Sam­lal and his suc­cess­ful at­tempts at re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion while on re­mand.

Not­ing that he par­tic­i­pat­ed in pro­grammes, as­sist­ed in tu­tor­ing fel­low pris­on­ers and was of­fered a schol­ar­ship from the Cipri­ani Col­lege of Labour and Co-op­er­a­tive Stud­ies, Jus­tice Joseph said: “You have utilised all the op­por­tu­ni­ties giv­en to you. That is very com­mend­able.”

She al­so not­ed that Ra­noo ex­pressed re­morse and ac­cept­ed that he had to face the con­se­quences of his ac­tions.

Re­fer­ring to the fact that his rel­a­tives agreed to as­sist him when he is even­tu­al­ly re­leased, Jus­tice Joseph said: “This is cru­cial for suc­cess­ful re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion and rein­te­gra­tion and re­duces the risk of re­of­fend­ing.”

Jus­tice Joseph then ap­plied a one-third dis­count for his guilty plea.

Ra­noo is ex­pect­ed to be re­leased in a lit­tle over ten and a half years, as the time he spent on re­mand was de­duct­ed from his sen­tence.

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Jus­tice Joseph ad­vised Ra­noo to al­ways con­sid­er what he did and the last­ing trau­ma it caused to his fam­i­ly.

“You killed an old man whose life should have end­ed peace­ful­ly. You killed him in a bru­tal fash­ion. The sanc­ti­ty of life re­mains para­mount in our so­ci­ety,” Jus­tice Joseph said.