(Trinidad Express) Having spent almost three decades in prison after being found guilty in 1999 of chopping his wife to death five years prior, a High Court judge has ordered the immediate release of a Mayaro man.
Initially, 58-year-old Tackhoor Ramcharan was sentenced to hang for the murder of Naline Ramcharan, but the sentence was eventually commuted to life.
Justice Gail Gonzales on Monday re-sentenced him in accordance with the Privy Council case of Naresh Boodram v The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago which held that life in prison amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Therefore, the High Court is now required to re-sentence those who were ordered to serve life, to specific numbers of years based on the individual circumstances of each case.
In imposing sentence on Ramcharan at the Hall of Justice in Port of Spain, Justice Gonzales began with a starting point of 35 years, before reducing it by five.
The judge said she believed that Ramcharan was no longer a threat to society. Taking into account the time he had already spent in prison, Justice Gonzales proceeded to sentenced him to time served.
Attorneys Rhea Libert, Josiah Soo Hon and Ananda Gobin appeared on behalf of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), while John Heath SC, and Peter Carter appeared for Ramcharan.
In May 1994, Ramcharan and his wife, who had two children together, were separated for some time and, when she refused a request by Ramcharan to move back in with him, he became enraged and threatened to kill her.
According to the State’s case, even though the two were still married, Naline Ramcharan became involved in a relationship with another man, and told her husband she preferred him (the other man).
One week later on May 14, Ramcharan returned to the house where the woman was living and called out to her. As she opened the door, Ramcharan chopped her a number of times including to the head.
Seconds after the incident, the victim’s mother, who was on her way to visit her daughter, heard her screaming and found her with chop wounds.
Ramcharan was also seen standing about 25 feet away with a cutlass in his hand.
The victim was taken to the Mayaro Hospital where she died the next day.
Police statement
On May 16, police went to Ramcharan’s house where he was living with his mother and placed him under arrest after he was said to have made a potentially incriminating oral statement.
The State claimed he also handed over to officers the clothing he had been wearing at the time of the incident as well as the cutlass he used before indicating he wanted to make a statement in writing. Ramcharan was then taken to the police station where he gave a written statement to the police, which was later authenticated by a Justice of the Peace.
During the course of the trial, Ramcharan denied he murdered his wife.
He claimed the last time he saw her was on May 8, when she hurled obscenities at him and told him she had “another man.”
Ramcharan also denied having given his clothes or cutlass to the police or having dictated a statement to the police. According to him, he went to the police station because of a telephone call he received. He said during that phone call he was informed that his wife had been wounded after a fight with his mother.
He claimed when he arrived at the station he saw his mother there and she was handcuffed at the time.
Ramcharan claimed officers brought documents for him to sign and informed him they were paperwork to have his mother granted station bail. Without reading the documents, he said he placed his signature on them, after which he said he was informed by an officer that he was to be charged with the murder.
