TEN men serving a life sentence for the murder of hanged drug kingpin Dole Chadee’s brother Thackoor Boodram, have lost their appeal.
The convictions and sentences of the ten were yesterday affirmed by appellate court judges, Alice Yorke-Soo Hon, Rajendra Narine and Prakash Moosai.
The ten sought to have the appellate court reopen their appeal to admit new evidence - that of the prosecution’s main witness Junior Grandison, who in 2011, swore in a statutory declaration that he lied at the 2001 trial.
Grandison — then the country’s ‘most wanted man’ — did not testify at the appeal, although summonses were issued for him to do so.
Grandison, in his statutory declaration dated June 1, 2011, swore that evidence he gave at the trial, “was false and did not represent the truth.” He was the main witness in the prosecution of ‘Rat’ Maharaj, Samuel Maharaj, Damien ‘Tommy’ Ramiah, Bobby Ramiah, Seenath ‘Farmer’ Ramiah, Daniel ‘Fella’ Gopaul, Richard Huggins, Leslie Huggins, Mark ‘Bico’ Jaikaran and Junior ‘Heads’ Phillip.
They were convicted on August 7, 2001, after a trial which lasted 33 days. The ten lost their appeals before the Court of Appeal but escaped the hangman’s noose because of the delay in hearing appeals at the London Privy Council.
Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.
Boodram was kidnapped and beheaded in 1997.