Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A Princes Town cou­ple has been sen­tenced to a com­bined 29 years in prison for the killing of the woman’s abu­sive ex-boyfriend.

Dwayne Baldeo and Re­nee Mo­hammed, who were await­ing tri­al for the 2020 mur­der of Christo­pher Ho­sein, were re­cent­ly al­lowed to plead guilty un­der the felony mur­der rule as part of a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Un­der the rule, the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der is waived in cir­cum­stances where a death oc­curs dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence.

The sen­tences were hand­ed down by High Court judge Mauri­cia Joseph-Patrick late last week.

The cou­ple was charged with mur­der­ing Ho­sein on Oc­to­ber 28, 2020. Ho­sein, 45, a for­mer fire of­fi­cer and busi­ness­man from Princes Town, was re­port­ed miss­ing that day. His body was dis­cov­ered the fol­low­ing day in a burnt ve­hi­cle off the M1 Tasker Road, Ste Madeleine.

Ho­sein’s hands were bound, his eyes cov­ered with duct tape, and a rope was tied around his neck. A post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion ruled that he died from a com­bi­na­tion of as­phyx­ia, smoke in­hala­tion and blunt force trau­ma to the head.

Baldeo and Mo­hammed were linked to the crime af­ter they were cap­tured on CCTV footage out­side Ho­sein’s apart­ment. When Baldeo was ar­rest­ed, po­lice al­so found items be­long­ing to Ho­sein in his car.

In de­ter­min­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tences, Jus­tice Joseph-Patrick be­gan with a start­ing point of 33 years’ im­pris­on­ment. She re­duced the sen­tences by three years af­ter con­sid­er­ing the cou­ple’s ex­pres­sions of re­morse and their par­tic­i­pa­tion in re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes while on re­mand.

Mo­hammed re­ceived a fur­ther one-year re­duc­tion based on the trau­ma she en­dured as a teenag­er and young adult, as well as her im­ma­tu­ri­ty at the time of Ho­sein’s death.

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for their guilty pleas and de­duct­ing time al­ready spent on re­mand, Baldeo and Mo­hammed were left with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 years and 14 years to serve, re­spec­tive­ly.

Dur­ing mit­i­ga­tion, Mo­hammed’s at­tor­neys Michelle Ali and Kamei­ka Pe­ters pre­sent­ed an af­fi­davit out­lin­ing as­pects of her per­son­al his­to­ry, which she said were omit­ted from her bio-so­cial re­port.

In the af­fi­davit, Mo­hammed claimed she suf­fered abuse at the hands of her fa­ther and step­fa­ther dur­ing child­hood and ado­les­cence. She al­so de­scribed an on-and-off re­la­tion­ship with Ho­sein, which she said was com­pli­cat­ed by his sex­u­al de­mands and her un­re­solved child­hood trau­ma.

Mo­hammed fur­ther al­leged that she met Baldeo at a bar and that he made sex­u­al ad­vances to­wards her dur­ing a so­cial gath­er­ing in May 2020. She claimed that, on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, he at­tacked her with a knife at her home, forc­ing her to jump from a sec­ond-storey bal­cony to es­cape. She said she sus­tained se­ri­ous in­juries from the fall and was hos­pi­talised for near­ly three months.

Ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed, she rekin­dled her re­la­tion­ship with Ho­sein af­ter be­ing dis­charged from hos­pi­tal, but al­leged that he at­tacked her sev­er­al times while she was bedrid­den.

She said Baldeo lat­er apol­o­gised for his ear­li­er con­duct and of­fered to “rough up” Ho­sein on her be­half. Mo­hammed claimed she agreed but did not be­lieve Ho­sein would be killed.

“I was not the mas­ter­mind be­hind the in­ci­dent. I was a vic­tim be­fore the in­ci­dent who felt like I had no choice at the time,” she said

She added that she now un­der­stands her ac­tions were wrong.

“I know now that I should have sought the in­ter­ven­tion of the po­lice in­stead of my co-ac­cused,” she said.

Baldeo was rep­re­sent­ed by Ra­jiv Per­sad, SC, and Ajesh Summe­sar.