[Deathpenalty] death penalty news------worldwide

[Rick Halperin]

June 13


TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

Life in prison for 4 killers


4 men who broke into a Siparia businesswoman's home in 1994, gang raped
her and her daughter and then killed them and another man by burning them
alive, have lost their murder appeals.

However, as the Privy Council gave the ruling yesterday, it stated that
none of the men can now be hanged. Their death sentences were commuted to
life imprisonment as a result of a 2005 ruling to the effect that everyone
on death row at the time should have their sentences commuted.

Marlon Daniel, 35; Anino Garcia, 30; Curtis "Earth" Marshall, 32; and
Curtis "Bush" Archibald, 33; all of Siparia, were sentenced to hang on
January 31, 2001 by Justice Herbert Volney, for the murders of Lalchan
Sookhoo, 35; Shamiroon Ali-Bocal, 42; and her 19-year-old daughter Nisha
Ali-Wahab.

At the trial, the court heard from some of the killers that the motive
behind the crime was robbery, and that the 3 people were only killed
because the men did not wear masks and could have been later identified.

The badly burnt bodies of the 3 victims were found at Ali-Bocal's Quinam
Road, Siparia home on January 3, 1994.

Ali-Wahab's baby was found alive by fire officers near a water cistern
about ten feet from the burning 2-storey building. The building had been
deliberately set afire, by igniting a carpet soaked in car oil along with
three LPG tanks in a bedroom.

The three bodies, described by the Court of Appeal-when it affirmed the
death sentences in 2002-as "extensively burnt (with) internal organs
cooked", were found in the same bedroom.

Post-mortem exams revealed that Ali-Wahab had been chopped on her left
shoulder and neck, while Ali-Bocal had a brassiere twisted around her
neck, and Sookhoo was shot dead.

In a confession statement, Daniel revealed a plan to rob Ali-Bocal, who
had owned a poultry depot, and also admitted that he and the other men
raped her and her daughter.

The cause of Sookhoo's death was only discovered after his skeletal
remains were exhumed on December 1, 1994, and the remains of a 16-gauge
shotgun cartridge were found among his bones.

Before the Privy Council, the four men complained that Justice Volney had
misdirected the jury on the law and also that he had erred in allowing
their confession statements to be used as evidence.

"Their Lordships consider that the case was sufficiently put before the
jury, notwithstanding the vigorous criticism of the summing-up,?" the
Privy Council stated in its judgment yesterday.

"(We) accept that the judge's directions were not without their
imperfections, but have concluded that, taking the summing-up as a whole,
the jury had the issues sufficiently placed before them."

(source: Trinidad Express)