(Trinidad Express) Trinidad and Tobago’s longest-serving death row prisoner, Wenceslaus James, was freed, on Tuesday, went home to his doting mother, was reunited with his village friends, and visited the beach yesterday.
No one informed the family and friends of Shammi Ramkissoon, who was 23 years old when James helped kill him with a sledgehammer in 1992.
They were first stunned, then in tears, after learning of the decision of the court.
News of the release of James, 60, came yesterday in a celebratory press statement from the Death Penalty Project, described as a legal action NGO based in London, with special consultative status before the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
The statement read: “Throughout his detention, he (James) has suffered extraordinary conditions on death row, including a near-death experience, when in 1999 his scheduled execution was halted without warning at the very last minute.
