Thomas, Yasseen get four-day reprieve
By Patrick Denny
Convicted murderers Noel Thomas and Abdool Yasseen will not be hanged today following a last ditch legal manoeuvre by a new battery of lawyers yesterday. The lawyers were granted a four-day stay of execution by Justice Winston Moore last night when they approached him at his Bel Air Park residence. The ex-parte application on behalf of the convicted murderers was made by a team of lawyers which comprised Nigel Hughes, Stephen Fraser, Teni Housty, Mohabeer Nandlall, Nicole Pierre, and two attorneys from Trinidad and Tobago, Reggie Armour and Douglas Mendes. On Thursday, the State is expected to respond to the complaints raised in the affidavit which supported the application. Among those complaints are claims that the death penalty is unconstitutional; that Thomas and Yasseen were not given the opportunity to be heard by the Committee on the Prerogative of Mercy; and of undue delay in the carrying out of the death sentence. Thomas and Yasseen were convicted for the 1987 murder of Yasseen's younger brother, Abdool Kaleem Yasseen. Abdool Kaleem Yasseen was shot to death at his home at Riverstown, Essequibo by Thomas who was paid $800 by Yasseen to do so. Over the weekend, Abdool Yasseen, Yasseen's father and other relatives of Yasseen appeared on television programmes aired on Channels Six and Nine, appealing to President Bharrat Jagdeo to commute the death penalty imposed on Thomas and Yasseen to life imprisonment. They gave among their reasons the fact that the two convicted murderers have been in prison for 12 years; and that the UN Human Rights Committee had recommended that they should be set free. They also pointed out that if Yasseen is executed his parents would have lost both of their sons. Yasseen's father also complained about the advice tendered by his son's counsel, Doodnauth Singh SC, because he had told them that there were no other legal processes which they could pursue. However, he said that they had been advised by other lawyers that there were other legal avenues open. Singh told Stabroek News last week that he had advised Yasseen's family that while no other legal process was available to them that they should appeal directly to President Jagdeo for clemency. Stabroek News checked with government sources to see if any appeal had been formally addressed to the President but up to that time none had been made. Thomas and Yasseen were first found guilty of murdering Yasseen's younger brother at the Essequibo sessions of the High Court in 1988. An appeal against this decision resulted in a retrial at which they were again convicted and sentenced to death. Appeals against the sentence were confirmed by the Court of Appeal and constitutional motions filed by their counsel, Singh, were also rejected by the Court of Appeal. Having exhausted all the legal processes available to them locally, Singh then appealed to the UN Human Rights Committee which ruled, after three years, that they should be released and compensated by the State. However, the Government noted that the ruling was only a recommendation and not a directive. Since then the Government has renounced the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on Civil, Political and Social Rights and re-acceded with a reservation entered against the provision which allows appeals to the Human Rights Committee. Following the ruling of the Human Rights Committee, Singh in another attempt to have his clients escape the death penalty, applied for the Court to have the UN Committee's decision observed but the Court merely ruled that the Committee on the Exercise of the Prerogative of Mercy should take into consideration the recommendations of the UN Committee in transmitting its decision to President Jagdeo.
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