A man from Tobago will face a retrial for murdering a friend during an alcohol-induced argument in 2009.
Appellate Judges Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Gregory Smith and Vasheist Kokaram ordered the retrial for Peter Radgman after upholding his appeal against his conviction on Wednesday.
In May 2019, Radgman was convicted of murdering Kooldip “Rishi” Maharaj.
Maharaj was smothered with a T-shirt and beaten to death with a crowbar at Radgman’s apartment at Allfield Trace, Lowlands, Tobago on June 13, 2009 after the two men allegedly got into a fight.
Radgman claimed that he had been drinking with friends earlier in the day and was taking a short nap when he was awoken by Maharaj, who hit him on his head and began arguing with him over money he owed.
In upholding the appeal, the panel ruled that the judge, who presided over his trial, did not properly direct the jury on how Radgman’s “frenzied attack” on Maharaj could still be consistent with his claimed defence of provocation.
The panel suggested that this may have led to the jury considering an impermissible line of reasoning.
“The severity of injuries may well have led the jury to conclude that provocation was not open to the appellant, while less severe injuries may have led them to conclude it was,” the judges said.
“The circumstances demonstrated that there was a real risk that the jury may have adopted this impermissible line of reasoning and it was important for the judge to have given them a direction in order to ameliorate that risk,” they added.
Despite finding that the judge erred, the judges were not too critical of her as they pointed out that they only gave advice to judges on how to consider provocation in a separate case in June.
That advice would be considered by the judge, who is eventually assigned to preside over Radgman’s retrial.
The appeal panel also upheld Radgman’s complaint that the judge wrongly allowed “bad character” evidence of a previous violent incident committed by him as evidence of his propensity to murder Maharaj.
In the appeal, Radgman’s lawyer Bindra Dolsingh also sought to utilise fresh evidence of Radgman’s alcohol addiction to show that he should have been afforded the other defence of diminished responsibility.
Dolsingh presented the evidence of psychiatrist Professor Gerard Hutchinson, who diagnosed Radgman with alcohol use disorder, last year.
Dolsingh admitted that he could not explain why his client’s condition and its link to the defence was not raised when he was put on trial in 2019 as he was represented by another attorney.
However, he claimed that the delay should not preclude the Appeal Court from considering the evidence as he suggested that it should “leave no stone unturned” based on the fact that Radgman was given the death penalty upon conviction.
Assistant DPP Sabrina Dougdeen-Jaglal called on the panel to reject the evidence as she pointed out that he (Hutchinson) admitted that he was unable to determine the severity of Radgman’s condition, his state of intoxication at the time of the crime and the effects of such on his actions.
The appeal panel agreed with Dougdeen-Jaglal and dismissed the ground.
Radgman was also represented by Chris Seelochan and David Carter.
