25 killers can still hang

The AG made this disclosure in the Senate as he responded to a question on the implementation of the death penalty.

Al-Rawi said that of the 37 people, “29 of them have had consideration by the last government.” Of those 29, “six of them were met with a contingent of appeals at the Privy Council just at the five-year marker with the then track having to run on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” he said.

Reiterating that the appellate process remains the stumbling block in the implementation of the death penalty in TT, Al-Rawi said this is why the Government has implemented a tracking mechanism for “every single file, for every single person who stands convicted to hang in accordance with the laws of TT.”

He said recently eight people were sentenced to death and “that eight are included in the 37.”

Al-Rawi said through the tracking mechanism, which is done daily, “25 persons in total are being tracked for the implementation of the law.” He said this is being done “so that the State ensures that every step that it has within its power to comply with the State’s input into the appellate process is preserved and is in fact accomplished.” He said “in those circumstances we expect to carry out the death penalty as soon as is lawfully possible.”

Responding to questions from Opposition Senator Gerald Ramdeen, Al-Rawi said 12 people have had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment “by operation of the rule in Pratt and Morgan.” He explained that the remaining 25 “have not been considered to be the beneficiaries of the rule in Pratt and Morgan and therefore have not yet crossed the bar of being in cruel and unusual punishment.”

After indicating the 12 people are still on Death Row, Al-Rawi said, “The listing and labelling of persons on Death Row is not consonant as to whether the execution is going to be carried out.”

He said Ramdeen’s questions reflected a “fundamental ignorance of the law.” He added, “The attempt to twist logic into reality is simply lost.”