Quintet gets 66 years each for murdering Berbice carpenter

JUSTICE Navindra Singh on Monday sentenced five men to 66 years imprisonment each for beating Berbice carpenter Faiyaz Narinedatt to death in 2016.

“This was a brutal murder… I don’t know how one human can be so brutal to another human being,” the judge said before handing down the sentence. They will each be eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 25 years.

In November 2022, a 12-member jury at the Berbice High Court found Orlando Dickie, Radesh Motie, Diodath Datt, Harri Paul Parsram, and Niran Yacoob guilty of murdering Narinedatt, between October 31 and November 1, 2016, at Number 70 Village, Berbice.

The state was represented by Special Prosecutor Latchmie Rahamat and State Counsel Nafeeza Baig.

At the sentencing hearing held on Monday, Narinedatt’s mother and father broke down as they addressed the killers. They explained that the victim was their only child and the father of two.

With teary eyes, the grieving parents asked the men why they killed

Narinedatt although they all grew up in the same village and were also known to the family.

“They kill meh son… It’s not easy fuh meh… Ayo destroyed meh life,” Narinedatt’s mother said to the five men as they watched her emotionlessly from the prisoner’s dock.

In their address to the court, the men begged the judge for leniency and also gave their “humblest sympathy” to the victim’s family for their loss.

In his sentencing remarks, Justice Singh spoke about the viciousness of the murder. He told the five men that despite the voluminous evidence, they still maintained that they were innocent of the crime.

Police had initially labelled the case a ‘hit-and-run accident,’ but Narinedatt’s relatives had always been adamant that the scene was staged by persons known to them.

Reports are that after beating Narinedatt to death, his assailants placed his lifeless body into the trunk of a car, and when they reached a prearranged spot, dumped it on the public road.

They then drove the car over the body to make it look like an accident.

Guyanese-American businessman Marcus Bisram was also charged for the murder, but was freed by a magistrate due to insufficient evidence.

Director of Public Prosecutions

(DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack, later instructed the magistrate to reopen the preliminary inquiry and commit Bisram to stand trial for the murder.

Bisram later moved to the High Court, where a judge ruled that his incarceration was unlawful and ordered that he be released from prison.