DEREK ACHONG

Two men con­vict­ed of two mur­ders di­rect­ly con­nect­ed to in­fa­mous lo­cal re­put­ed drug king­pin Nankissoon “Dole Chadee” Boodram will have to serve an ad­di­tion­al 22-year prison sen­tence be­fore they are re­leased.

Leslie Hug­gins and Ju­nior Phillip were in­formed of their re­main­ing prison term as they were re-sen­tenced for mur­der­ing Hug­gins’ cousin Clint by High Court Judge Gail Gon­za­les on Wednes­day.

Clint, who was the main wit­ness against Dole Chadee and eight mem­bers of his gang for the mur­ders of a Pi­paro fam­i­ly of four in 1994, was killed on Feb­ru­ary 20, 1996.

Boodram’s re­put­ed lieu­tenant Joey Rami­ah al­leged­ly con­tact­ed Hug­gins, his cousin Arnold and Phillip, who was their neigh­bour, while he (Rami­ah) was on re­mand await­ing tri­al and of­fered them $3 mil­lion to mur­der Clint.

Clint was in pro­tec­tive cus­tody but de­cid­ed to leave the safe house to at­tend Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions with rel­a­tives.

On Car­ni­val Tues­day, Clint was lim­ing at Hug­gins’ home with Hug­gins, Phillip and the oth­er rel­a­tive be­fore they left in two ve­hi­cles to at­tend cel­e­bra­tions in Port-of-Spain.

While en route, the men stopped and at­tacked Clint. Arnold al­leged­ly shot him twice be­fore Hug­gins drove one of the ve­hi­cles in­to Clint pin­ning him to a chain link fence.

Hug­gins then stabbed his cousin Clint sev­er­al times be­fore Phillip hit him over the head with a piece of wood.

They then put Clint in the car and set it on fire.

When the po­lice found his body and ques­tioned the men, they all de­nied any in­volve­ment as they claimed that Clint had bor­rowed the car to buy cig­a­rettes and did not re­turn.

How­ev­er, Phillip even­tu­al­ly con­tact­ed the po­lice and con­fessed to his in­volve­ment.

Pros­e­cu­tors were still able to use Clint’s state­ments, giv­en to the po­lice be­fore his mur­der, dur­ing Dole Chadee and his gang’s tri­al. They were con­vict­ed and even­tu­al­ly ex­e­cut­ed in Ju­ly 1999.

Phillip, Hug­gins and the oth­er rel­a­tive were even­tu­al­ly con­vict­ed of Clint’s mur­der in May 2001 and were is­sued the manda­to­ry death penal­ty. How­ev­er, their sen­tences were even­tu­al­ly com­mut­ed to life im­pris­on­ment based on the land­mark Privy Coun­cil rul­ing in the Ja­maican case of Pratt and Mor­gan, which stat­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment can on­ly be car­ried out with­in five years of con­vic­tion.

They were re-sen­tenced for the crime yes­ter­day based on a more re­cent land­mark de­ci­sion, in which the British Law Lords ruled that those who ben­e­fit from com­mut­ed sen­tences should re­ceive def­i­nite prison terms as op­posed to im­pris­on­ment for the re­main­der of their nat­ur­al lives.

Arnold was pre­vi­ous­ly re-sen­tenced.

Phillip, Hug­gins and eight for­mer Dole Chadee as­so­ciates were al­so charged with mur­der­ing his broth­er Thack­oor Boodram months af­ter Clint.

Boodram, a pig farmer, was kid­napped from his home in south Trinidad on De­cem­ber 20, 1997.

A ran­som was de­mand­ed by his ab­duc­tors, but 10 days lat­er his head was found in a whiskey box at the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Site.

The group was con­vict­ed in 2002 and their death sen­tences were al­so com­mut­ed.

Last year, High Court Judge Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son re-sen­tenced them and or­dered the re­lease of Michael “Rat” Ma­haraj, Samuel Ma­haraj, Damien Rami­ah, Bob­by Rami­ah, Seenath Rami­ah, Daniel Gopaul, Richard Hug­gins, and Mark Jaik­er­an.

Jus­tice Hen­der­son be­gan with a start­ing sen­tence of 33 years but af­ter ap­ply­ing dis­counts for their re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion in prison, the fail­ure of the T&T Prison Ser­vice to pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly re­view their sen­tences af­ter they were com­mut­ed, prison re­mis­sion, and the time they al­ready spent in prison, he ruled they had com­plet­ed their sen­tences.

Al­though Phillip and Hug­gins re­ceived a sim­i­lar re-sen­tenc­ing, they were not re­leased as they were yet to be re-sen­tenced for Clint’s mur­der.

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for the duo, Jus­tice Gon­za­les be­gan with a start­ing point of 30 years be­cause it was a pre­med­i­tat­ed killing of a rel­a­tive for fi­nan­cial gain and in­tend­ed to per­vert the course of jus­tice in Dole Chadee’s case.

She in­creased it by three years based on them com­mit­ting Boodram’s mur­der months af­ter Clint was killed.

She then re­duced their sen­tences to 25 years based on them show­ing re­morse and com­plet­ing re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes with dis­tinc­tion while in prison.

“Hug­gins’ at­tempt at re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion can on­ly be con­sid­ered as stel­lar and ex­em­plary. Phillips al­so had a re­mark­able record of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion,” she said.

Jus­tice Gon­za­les did not agree to deduct the full time they spent in prison from the sen­tence as they were cred­it­ed for such when they were pre­vi­ous­ly re-sen­tenced for Boodram’s mur­der.

“In this case, al­though the pris­on­ers have been in cus­tody for many years one can­not lose sight of the fact that it is for two mur­ders aris­ing out of two sep­a­rate in­ci­dents and giv­en the grav­i­ty of both of­fences this sen­tence should not be sub­sumed in the ear­li­er sen­tence,” she said.

They did re­ceive al­most three years cred­it for the time spent on re­mand be­fore their con­vic­tion and the time spent af­ter they were re-sen­tenced for Boodram’s mur­der in March, last year.

Hug­gins was rep­re­sent­ed by Pe­ter Carter and Vani­ta Ram­roop, while Ra­jiv Per­sad, SC, and Ajesh Sumes­sar rep­re­sent­ed Phillip.