Two sentenced to hang for killing pundit

Sunil Singh and Baldath Rampersad were before Justice Carla Brown-Antoine in the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court, charged with the murder of pundit Kamal Harripersad who was chopped to death at his home.

After a three-day summation, a 12-member jury panel deliberated for three hours before returning with guilty verdicts for the two men.

Harripersad, 54, of St John’s Trace, Orange Field Road, Chaguanas, was at home with his wife and children when intruders stormed the house and chopped him to death.

The men demanded money, struck Harripersad’s wife Tara Lochan on the head with a gun butt and stole cellular phones, pieces of jewellery and $300.

Lochan testified at the trial.

Singh and Rampersad were charged with the murder and, after a preliminary inquiry in the Chaguanas Magistrates Court, they were committed to stand trial in 2009.

Also testifying for the prosecution was Jagdeo Goolie Persad who claimed he was the driver of the getaway car the killers used in carrying out the crime.

Persad, who turned hostile on the witness stand, was treated as a witness with an interest to serve.

There was a hushed silence when Brown-Antoine read out the sentence of death to the two men who were represented by attorneys Sophia Chote,SC, Michelle Solomon and Keith Scotland.

State attorneys from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Nigel Pilgrim and Giselle Ferguson-Heller prosecuted.