Labourer pleads guilty to 7 armed robberies, jailed for 14 years

A man was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by Magistrate Charlyn Artiga last Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to seven counts of robbery under arms.

Prem Narine, 20, a labourer of Lot 15 Princeton, Corriverton, Corentyne had appeared before Magistrate Artiga and had the indictable charges read to him. He was not required to plead.

However, an application for the defendant to enter a plea was made by Police Prosecutor Sergeant Althea Solomon and it was granted by the magistrate in the Number 51 Magistrate’s Court.

The charges were read for a second time and Narine entered guilty pleas to all seven of the offences. He was sentenced to two years imprisonment on each count.

According to the charges, Narine, while in the company of others, robbed Nazam Nadir of one Blu cellular phone worth $40,000; Naresh DePaul of a silver chain worth $8,000, an Alcatel cellular phone valued $21,500 and a Great Wall computer worth $60,000; and Nickolas Seenarine of a haversack valued $24,000 and a $90,000 Nokia cellular phone; The other charges stated that Dameon McGregor was robbed of an HTC cellphone and an artificial chain a total value of $32,000; Kelina Ramrit was also robbed of a $21,500 Motorola cellphone, a gold and diamond ring valued $98,000, a gold chain valued $40,000, a gold bangle valued $29,000 and a pair of gold earrings valued $6,000 a total of $285,000; Christine Kistoo was robbed of gold earrings worth $12,000, a gold and diamond ring worth $30,000 and a Samsung Galaxy 4 tablet worth $140,000 a total value of $182,000. According to the prosecution facts all of the items were recovered and were positively identified by the owners as their property. However, another victim Derrick Ramit was robbed of $191,000 in cash and jewellery and none of his belongings were recovered.

According to the facts of the case, on July 5, at 417 Circle Street, Number 76 Housing Scheme, the defendant was armed with a dangerous weapon when he and others carried out a robbery. After the robbery they made a good escape. However, police acting on information received, were able to arrest the defendant with the items in his possession. He was arrested and taken into custody and later placed before the court.