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Monday, July 28, 2025

Maraval man released from prison for neighbour’s murder

by

Derek Achong
1025 days ago
20221006

Af­ter spend­ing al­most 13 years on re­mand for stab­bing his neigh­bour to death af­ter an ar­gu­ment, a Mar­aval man has been or­dered to be re­leased from prison. 

Ka­reem “Grimey” Ed­wards, of Boissiere Vil­lage, Mar­aval, was ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der­ing Kurt Blaize but was al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter af­ter a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) was up­held by High Court Judge Hay­den St Clair-Dou­glas, yes­ter­day. 

Ed­wards was charged with killing Kurt Blaize on Oc­to­ber 3, 2009.  Ac­cord­ing to the agreed facts in the case, Ed­wards was lim­ing with Blaize and two oth­er res­i­dents, iden­ti­fied on­ly as Mustapha and Brit­tany, when Blaize start­ed an ar­gu­ment over Brit­tany tak­ing his hat.  Mustapha re­port­ed­ly grabbed a piece of wood and hit Blaize on his back.

Blaize left the group and went to his girl­friend’s home where he told her what tran­spired and threat­ened to kill Mustapha. Blaize got a cut­lass and re­turned to con­front the group. 

How­ev­er, he was greet­ed by Ed­wards, Mustapha and an­oth­er man, iden­ti­fied as Trevor, who were armed with a knife and cut­lass­es.

The trio chased Blaize a short dis­tance be­fore Ed­wards stabbed him sev­er­al times. 

Blaize was able to walk a short dis­tance be­fore he suc­cumbed to his wounds, which per­fo­rat­ed both his lungs. 

Ed­wards was de­tained weeks lat­er and was ini­tial­ly re­leased be­fore be­ing re­ar­rest­ed and charged with the crime. 

Un­der the terms of the plea agree­ment, pros­e­cu­tor Maria Lyons-Ed­wards and Ed­wards’ de­fence at­tor­ney Ul­ric Sker­ritt and Michelle Gon­za­les agreed that he should re­ceive a sen­tence of be­tween 10 to 15 years for manslaugh­ter. 

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence, Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas be­gan with a start­ing point of 20 years. 

He de­duct­ed two years based on the ev­i­dence of Blaize’s ag­gres­sion which led to his death be­fore ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for Ed­wards’ guilty plea. 

Ed­wards was im­me­di­ate­ly dis­charged by Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas as he not­ed that he had al­ready served 10 months in ex­cess of his 12-year sen­tence on re­mand. 

Jus­tice St Clair-Dou­glas ad­vised Ed­wards to stay clear of con­fronta­tions in the fu­ture. 

“Trou­ble is easy to find and you can find your­self in a sit­u­a­tion as quick as that. Learn from your mis­take,” he said.  


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