Akeel Mitchell and Richard Cha­too, the two men con­vict­ed of bru­tal­ly mur­der­ing six-year-old Sean Luke as teenagers over 15 years ago, have been sen­tenced to 17 and a half years and 11 and a half years in prison, re­spec­tive­ly.

High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds set the min­i­mum manda­to­ry terms for the duo, who she found guilty of the heinous crime on Ju­ly 23, dur­ing a vir­tu­al sen­tence hear­ing, a short while ago.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds be­gan the sen­tenc­ing ex­er­cise by ex­plain­ing that the manda­to­ry death sen­tence for mur­der could not be ap­plied to Mitchell and Cha­too as they were 13 and 16-years-old when Luke was killed in March 2006.

In pass­ing the sen­tences on the duo, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds ex­plained that they would on­ly be el­i­gi­ble for re­lease on li­cence af­ter serv­ing the pe­ri­ods in prison if a judge is con­vinced that they have been suf­fi­cient­ly re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed and are no longer a threat to so­ci­ety.

She not­ed that the manda­to­ry min­i­mums can be re­duced if there is ex­cep­tion­al ev­i­dence of their re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion dur­ing pe­ri­od­ic sen­tence re­views, which will take place every three years.

“Even when you are re­leased on li­cence, you have not served sen­tence which will con­tin­ue for rest of your life,” Jus­tice Ram­suamir-Hinds said.

She al­so ad­vised the duo that they had work to do to earn their even­tu­al re­lease.

“The na­ture of the ap­palling cir­cum­stances sug­gests that rein­te­gra­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, though a pos­si­bil­i­ty, are a long way to go. You have a lot of work to do. May God have mer­cy on your souls,” Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said.

In cal­cu­lat­ing the manda­to­ry min­i­mums for the duo, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds be­gan with a start­ing point of 35 years for Mitchell and 33 years for Cha­too.

Mitchell’s start­ing point was in­creased by five years based on his ac­tions in Luke’s mur­der, which in­clud­ed him plac­ing him­self near Luke’s moth­er af­ter the mur­der to give him an al­i­bi.

“It is the chill­ing re­al­i­sa­tion of the ab­sence of re­morse, wor­ry and fear in some­one so young. I know chil­dren who are ter­ri­fied of be­ing caught,” Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said.

How­ev­er, Jus­tice Ram­suamir-Hinds re­duced his sen­tence by sev­en years due to his age at the time of the mur­der and the fact that he had a pos­i­tive re­port from prison in terms of dis­ci­pli­nary in­frac­tions and par­tic­i­pa­tion in pro­grammes.

Cha­too did not re­ceive an up­lift in his sen­tence but was af­ford­ed a six-year re­duc­tion based on his age and pos­i­tive prison record.

Af­ter the time they served in prison await­ing tri­al and af­ter they were con­vict­ed was de­duct­ed from their sen­tences, they were left with sen­tences of 17 and a half years and 11 and half years.

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 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.

In con­vict­ing the duo, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds al­so con­sid­ered 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 sodom­ized 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.

Pros­e­cu­tors al­so led DNA ev­i­dence 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.

Cha­too and Mitchell have al­ready sig­nalled their in­ten­tion to ap­peal their con­vic­tions.

Mitchell is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Ran­dall Raphael and Kir­by Joseph, while Evans Welch, Kel­ston Pope and Gabriel Her­nan­dez rep­re­sent­ed Cha­too.

Sab­ri­na Dougdeen-Jaglal, An­ju Bho­la and Sophia Sandy-Smith are pros­e­cut­ing.

Re­porter: Derek Achong