DEREK ACHONG

Two for­mer stu­dents of the Five Rivers Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary School, who ad­mit­ted to mur­der­ing a class­mate af­ter a friend ac­cused him of sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ing her, al­most 13 years ago, have been each sen­tenced to 33 years in prison. 

Roshan Ramkissoon and Dan­ny See­ta­hal, who were charged with mur­der­ing 15-year-old Aleem Ali, for­mer­ly of Seecha­ran Street in Tacarigua, be­tween March 25 and 29, 2007, re­ceived the sen­tences from High Court Judge Gillian Lucky at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

The duo was set to go on tri­al, last year, but was al­lowed to plead guilty to the of­fence as the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der is waived in cir­cum­stances when it is com­mit­ted by mi­nors. Both Ramkissoon and See­ta­hal were a few months short of their 18th birth­days when they killed Ali. 

In as­sess­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for the duo, Lucky opt­ed to raise the 30-year start­ing point sug­gest­ed by State pros­e­cu­tors to 33 years. 

Lucky stat­ed that she took the de­ci­sion based on the ev­i­dence in the case over the heinous na­ture of the crime in­clud­ing the fact that Ali was lured to the lo­ca­tion and begged for his life be­fore be­ing blud­geoned and chopped to death by the then teenagers. She al­so not­ed that the duo at­tempt­ed to con­ceal their crime by burn­ing Ali’s body. 

Af­ter ap­ply­ing the manda­to­ry one-third dis­count for their ear­ly guilty pleas and sub­tract­ing the 12 years, eight months and 15 days they spent on re­mand await­ing tri­al, the duo was left with a sen­tence of nine years, three months and 15 days. 

Lucky then chose to round off the sen­tences to eight years in prison with hard labour as she fac­tored in ev­i­dence over the duo’s re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion whilst in prison. 

As they were be­ing sen­tenced as mi­nors, Lucky or­dered that their sen­tences be re­viewed an­nu­al­ly but not­ed that they should not be re­leased un­til they serve at least half their sen­tence. 

In pass­ing the sen­tence, Lucky al­so con­sid­ered the ef­fect Ali’s mur­der had on his im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly in­clud­ing his sis­ters, who sat in the pub­lic gallery side by side with the duo’s rel­a­tives. 

“There must be jus­tice...Ali is not here but he speaks through his fa­ther, moth­er and what has hap­pened to his fam­i­ly,” Lucky said. 

Lucky lament­ed over the fact that the duo chose to take their fe­male friend’s rape com­plaint against Ali in­to their own hands in­stead of re­port­ing it to a teacher or the po­lice.

“Far too of­ten per­sons, in­clud­ing young per­sons, are re­sort­ing to vi­o­lence to re­solve is­sues...you de­cid­ed to take mat­ters in your own hands,” she said.

Be­fore com­plet­ing the case, Lucky re­vealed that an­oth­er class­mate Ker­win Welling­ton was al­so in­volved in Ali’s mur­der but was grant­ed im­mu­ni­ty by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in ex­change for tes­ti­fy­ing against his friends at their tri­al. 

Lucky not­ed that al­though he was no longer be­fore the court and did not need to tes­ti­fy, he was still cul­pa­ble. 

“He was just not a silent ob­serv­er. I hope he has that lev­el of re­morse and un­der­stand­ing,” Lucky said, as she ad­dressed one of Welling­ton’s rel­a­tives, who was in court. 

Ramkissoon was rep­re­sent­ed by John Heath, while Trevor Jones and Re­bec­ca Trim-Wright pros­e­cut­ed.