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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Guilty verdict for Sean Luke murder accused

by

DEREK ACHONG
1446 days ago
20210723
Sean Luke.

Sean Luke.

DEREK ACHONG

 

Two men have been con­vict­ed of bru­tal­ly mur­der­ing six-year-old Sean Luke over 15 years ago.

De­liv­er­ing her de­ci­sion dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing a short while ago, High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds found Akeel Mitchell and Richard Cha­too guilty of the heinous crime.

"All the ev­i­dence leads to one in­escapable con­clu­sion," Ram­sumair-Hinds said, as she ruled that both men were guilty be­yond a rea­son­able doubt.

Ram­sumair-Hinds im­me­di­ate­ly sought to pre-empt ex­pect­ed calls from cit­i­zens for the duo to face the death penal­ty for the crime.

She not­ed that the death penal­ty for mur­der does not ap­ply when the of­fence is com­mit­ted when con­vict­ed per­sons were mi­nors.

"The law is clear. Stop clam­our­ing for it," she said, as she in­vit­ed at­tor­neys to agree on a date when she would hear sub­mis­sions on the manda­to­ry sen­tence the duo should serve be­fore a court con­sid­ers the pos­si­bil­i­ty of their re­lease.

The sub­mis­sions will be pre­sent­ed on Au­gust 23.

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 sodom­ized with a 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.

Dur­ing the tri­al, State pros­e­cu­tors led the ev­i­dence of two 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 filled with in­con­sis­ten­cies and bizarre state­ments.

State pros­e­cu­tors al­so re­lied on 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 as Mitchell raped him and sodom­ized him with the sug­ar­cane stalk.

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.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds re­peat­ed­ly re­ject­ed the sug­ges­tions against Ba­boolal. 

"I re­main sure on the ev­i­dence that Avinash Ba­boolal was not in­volved," she said.

She al­so re­ject­ed Cha­too's tes­ti­mo­ny over al­leged po­lice mis­con­duct in re­la­tion to his con­fes­sion, as she not­ed that the po­lice of­fi­cers were co­gent and com­pelling wit­ness­es.

She al­so not­ed that she chose not to re­ly on Cha­too's orig­i­nal con­fes­sion as she said that he at­tempt­ed to down­play his role in the crime.

Pros­e­cu­tors were al­so re­ly­ing on DNA ev­i­dence col­lect­ed in the case, which showed that Mitchell's se­men was found on Luke's dis­card­ed un­der­wear.

A sec­ond DNA pro­file, not linked to Cha­too, was found on the sug­ar­cane stalk and on anal swabs tak­en dur­ing Luke's au­top­sy.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds up­held the ev­i­dence of the State's DNA ex­pert Dr Mau­rice Aboud. 

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.


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