Accused mastermind, accomplice charged in murder of overseas-based Guyanese

Malisha Dutchin, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the murder of overseas-based Guyanese Hemraj Pardesi, was today charged with the crime alongside an alleged accomplice, even as police continued a hunt for a third accused.

Dutchin, 23, of Lot 4 Reliance Settlement, East Canje, Berbice, and Mario Bissoondial, 32, a fisherman of Cumberland Village, East Canje, Berbice, appeared before Magistrate Renita Singh at the New Amsterdam Magistrate’s Court, where they were charged jointly with murdering Pardesi at his Lot 9 Reliance Settlement house in the furtherance of a robbery.

The two unrepresented accused were not required to plead and were remanded to prison until September 9.

During the wee hours of Wednesday morning last week, Pardesi was found with a wound at the top of his head where it is suspected that he was initially struck. An autopsy gave the cause of his death as ligature strangulation and blunt trauma to the head.

Hemraj Pardesi

The upper flat of his house was ransacked and it is suspected that the perpetrators carted off $800,000 that Pardesi reportedly withdrew from the bank on Tuesday last for renovations to his premises.

Police have issued a wanted bulletin for a third accused, Jason Isaacs.