DEREK ACHONG

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Two men con­vict­ed of bru­tal­ly mur­der­ing six-year-old Sean Luke, 15 years ago, can still pos­si­bly be re­leased from prison even­tu­al­ly. 

Af­ter con­vict­ing Akeel Mitchell and Richard Cha­too of the heinous crime at the end of their vir­tu­al judge-alone tri­al yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds sought to pre-empt pos­si­ble calls from the mem­bers of the pub­lic for the duo to face the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der. 

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds not­ed that as Mitchell and Cha­too were mi­nors at the time of Luke’s mur­der, they can­not face the death penal­ty that is hand­ed down to adult of­fend­ers. 

“The law is clear. Stop clam­our­ing for it,” Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said. 

Mitchell and Cha­too will be held in prison at the court’s plea­sure and will have their sen­tences re­viewed pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly af­ter serv­ing a manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tence, which is ex­pect­ed to be set af­ter sub­mis­sions from their at­tor­neys and pros­e­cu­tors are pre­sent­ed dur­ing a hear­ing card­ed for Au­gust 23. 

The time they spent on re­mand be­fore be­ing con­vict­ed will al­so go to­wards their sen­tence. In the event that a judge, pre­sid­ing over their fu­ture sen­tence re­views, is sat­is­fied that they have been re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed and are fit to re­turn to so­ci­ety, they may be re­leased.  

In her judge­ment, which took over three hours to be de­liv­ered oral­ly and was wit­nessed by over 1,500 cit­i­zens, who made use of a live stream pro­vid­ed by the Ju­di­cia­ry, Ram­suamir-Hinds said she was sat­is­fied that cir­cum­stan­tial ev­i­dence in the case proved that the duo had com­mit­ted the crime be­yond a rea­son­able doubt. 

“All the ev­i­dence leads to one in­escapable con­clu­sion,” Ram­sumair-Hinds said, be­fore de­liv­er­ing her in­di­vid­ual ver­dicts for Mitchell and Cha­too. 

Luke, of Hen­ry Street, Or­ange Val­ley Road in Cou­va, went miss­ing on the evening of March 26, 2006 and his de­com­pos­ing body was found two days lat­er. An au­top­sy re­vealed that he died from in­ter­nal in­juries and bleed­ing aris­ing out of be­ing sodomised with sug­ar­cane stalk.

Cha­too, who was 16 years old at the time, and 13-year-old Mitchell, who is the step­son of Cha­too’s broth­er, were charged with the crime. 

Weigh­ing the ev­i­dence

Dur­ing the tri­al, State pros­e­cu­tors led the ev­i­dence of teenagers Avinash Ba­boolal and Arvis Pradeep, who claimed that Cha­too had in­vit­ed Luke to ac­com­pa­ny them on a fish­ing ex­pe­di­tion. Both Ba­boolal and Pradeep claimed that they saw Luke, Cha­too and Mitchell en­ter an aban­doned sug­ar­cane field, where Luke’s body was even­tu­al­ly found, with on­ly Cha­too and Mitchell emerg­ing. How­ev­er, while Ba­boolal claimed that they en­tered the field on their way to the riv­er, Pradeep claimed the di­ver­sion came when they were re­turn­ing. Both claimed that they heard a strange noise em­a­nat­ing from the area but nei­ther went in to in­ves­ti­gate. 

In her de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said she be­lieved Ba­boolal but not Pradeep, as his (Pradeep) ev­i­dence was rid­dled with in­con­sis­ten­cies and bizarre state­ments. 

“Red flags were at full mast when he (Pradeep) be­gun his ev­i­dence,” Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said. 

In her judge­ment, Ram­sumair-Hinds said she con­sid­ered and dis­re­gard­ed a video-record­ed con­fes­sion state­ment, in which Cha­too im­pli­cat­ed him­self and Mitchell. 

In the record­ing, Cha­too claimed that Mitchell, who was spend­ing time at his home, re­quest­ed that he (Mitchell) have sex with him. Ac­cord­ing to Cha­too, af­ter he re­fused, he re­luc­tant­ly agreed to Mitchell’s re­quest to in­tro­duce him to Luke, who was his (Cha­too) neigh­bour. Cha­too claimed that he mere­ly held Luke’s hands and cov­ered his mouth as Mitchell raped him and sodomised him with the sug­ar­cane stalk. 

How­ev­er, Cha­too elect­ed to tes­ti­fy in his de­fence dur­ing the tri­al and claimed that he fab­ri­cat­ed the con­fes­sion, as he was threat­ened and co­erced by homi­cide de­tec­tives. Cha­too de­nied any wrong­do­ing and claimed that Mitchell did not ac­com­pa­ny the group on the fish­ing trip. He al­so sought to sug­gest that Ba­boolal may have been the per­pe­tra­tor. 

Ram­sumair-Hinds not­ed that Cha­too’s ini­tial con­fes­sion was not re­li­able, as he sought to down­play his in­volve­ment. She re­ject­ed his sub­se­quent claims of po­lice mis­con­duct, as she ruled that the homi­cide de­tec­tives in the case had pro­vid­ed clear and co­gent ev­i­dence. Ram­sumair-Hinds al­so re­peat­ed­ly re­ject­ed al­le­ga­tions from the duo and their at­tor­neys that Ba­boolal was in­volved. 

“I re­main sure on the ev­i­dence that Avinash Ba­boolal was not in­volved,” she said, as she not­ed she did not think Cha­too was be­ing a truth­ful wit­ness in the tri­al. 

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds al­so point­ed to the DNA ev­i­dence col­lect­ed in the case, which showed that Mitchell’s se­men was found on Luke’s dis­card­ed un­der­wear. A par­tial DNA pro­file, not linked to Cha­too, was found on the sug­ar­cane stalk and on anal swabs tak­en dur­ing Luke’s au­top­sy. 

While Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said she was sat­is­fied with the ev­i­dence of the State’s DNA ex­pert Dr Mau­rice Aboud, she ex­pressed con­cern over the fact that ev­i­dence col­lect­ed dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was on­ly sent of DNA test­ing at Aboud’s pri­vate lab at the start of the case. 

She not­ed that DNA test­ing was pos­si­ble at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James un­til 2018, when the cen­tre’s equip­ment was not op­er­a­tional due to a lack of cal­i­bra­tion. 

“I find that un­ac­cept­able,” Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said, as she not­ed that some sam­ples col­lect­ed had de­te­ri­o­rat­ed over the lengthy pe­ri­od. 

As a sec­ondary is­sue in the case, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds had to con­sid­er whether a le­gal prin­ci­ple over the men­tal ca­pac­i­ty of a child un­der 14 to have crim­i­nal in­tent ap­plied to Mitchell. She said it was re­butted, as Mitchell was weeks short of his 14th birth­day and based on the ev­i­dence, was aware that his ac­tions were wrong as he sought to give him­self a false al­i­bi by wait­ing at Luke’s home and speak­ing to his moth­er be­fore the oth­er chil­dren re­turned. 

“He (Mitchell) pushed the cane stalk un­til there was nowhere else to go,” she said.  

Mitchell was rep­re­sent­ed by Mario Mer­ritt, Ran­dall Raphael and Kir­by Joseph, while Evans Welch, Kel­ston Pope and Gabriel Her­nan­dez rep­re­sent­ed Cha­too. Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal, An­ju Bho­la and Sophia Sandy-Smith pros­e­cut­ed the case.