Court affirms 30 years and 20 strokes for rapist

A rapist who was initially sentenced to 40 years, 20 strokes and  life imprisonment but had his sentence varied to 30 years in the Court of Appeal, failed to benefit from a second appeal yesterday. Although his sentence is to start from 1996, he is to receive the 20 strokes ordered by the judge.

On deliberating the further grounds of appeal of  Leslie Tiwari, the Court of Appeal said that it considered it important that Tiwari, from as early as September 1991 has persisted in an elaborate attempt to hoodwink the appellate court into believing that he had credible evidence that he was wrongly identified and that former judge, Justice Aneas Wills, had denied him that  opportunity to call three witnesses and prove it. “Further,” the Court, comprising Justice Rolston Nelson, Justice Anthony Lucky and Justice Wendell Kangaloo  said, “the crimes committed by the appellant (Tiwari) are particularly dastardly, heinous and offensive to the community’s values. He has shown no remorse at any time during the remand period.”

The facts are that on the night of June 29/30, 1983, a young wife was raped at her home by a gang of three men, including her neighbour.  Two of the men were wearing masks and the other had a handkerchief over his face. The woman was sleeping with her husband at their  Jerningham Junction home at the time. The men took the woman to a back room where they took turns raping her. The men also took jewelry and cash from the woman and her mother who lived with her, before setting the house on fire. Tiwari was initially found guilty and sentenced by Justice Wills to 30 years and 20 strokes with the whip for rape, ten years for robbery — to run consecutively with the 30. On the second count of robbery he was also given ten years but that was to run concurrently with the other sentence, and on the count of arson, he was sentenced to life. He appealed, and the Court of Appeal led by then Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide dismissed the appeal, but varied the sentence to 30 years. The order as to the strokes was not varied.

Tiwari took his matter to the Privy Council who remitted it to the Court of Appeal to consider Tiwari’s allegation that his witnesses were not called to testify. The Court yesterday did not accept his contention and dismissed his appeal and affirmed sentences as pronounced by the last panel at the court of Appeal, with little variation. The State was represented by Assistant DPP Devan Rampersad while Dana Seetahal and Ricky Rahim appeared for Tiwari.