Ten men who were convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Thackoor Boodram have now commenced proceedings against President Anthony Carmona seeking their freedom. Two of the convicted men, Michael Maharaj and Damian Ramiah, who are serving life sentences at the state’s prison, yesterday issued a pre-action protocol letter to the President through their lawyer Wayne Sturge.
They are calling on Carmona to determine their petition which requests him to exercise his powers under Section 64 of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act, Chapter 4:01. The letter states that the inaction on the part of the President to determine their petition amounts to a breach of their fundamental right to due process. The men have given Carmona 14 days in which to make a determination, failing which constitutional proceedings will be brought against him.
On August 7, 2001, Damien “Tommy” Ramiah, Bobby Ramiah, Seenath “Farmer” Ramiah, Michael “Rat” Maharaj, Samuel Maharaj, Daniel “Fella” Gopaul, Richard Huggins, Leslie Huggins, Mark “Bico” Jaikaran and Junior “Heads” Phillip were convicted of Boodram’s murder and were given the death sentence by Justice Stanley John.
The men are calling for their case to be reopened because four years ago the state’s main witness at the trial, Junior Grandison, swore in a statutory declaration that the evidence he gave at the trial was fabricated. The men’s relatives and lawyers subsequently petitioned former President George Maxwell Richards requesting that he refer the case to the Appeal Court for it to be reopened in light of the new evidence. He was replaced by Carmona in 2013.
The pre-action protocol letter states that to date there has been no acknowledgement by the claimants’ attorneys to the petitions by the Office of the President, nor have they been informed of any step taken by the State since the lodging of the petitions towards a determination of whether Carmona will send the case back to the Court of Appeal to consider the evidence of Grandison as contained in the statutory declaration.
It said: “Our society is one that is based upon the rule of law, respect for the Constitution and the recognition and protection of fundamental rights.
“If the evidence of Junior Grandison is true, what has transpired in this particular case is nothing short of a fundamental subversion of the rule of law. That ten men could be convicted based upon evidence that is false and that error was not corrected by the appellate process is a matter of grave concern, more so in a case such as the present, where the sentence imposed upon the convicted is that of death.
“This is a matter that ought to require the authorities to examine closely the manner in which criminal justice is administered in this country. It is a matter that has the potential to bring the administration of justice into disrepute.” Last month, Ramiah’s 80-year-old mother was joined by approximately 50 other people outside the High Court, Port-of-Spain, in a protest calling for her three sons to be freed.