Cumberland fisherman sentenced to life for killing overseas-based Guyanese

The Cumberland, East Canje Berbice, fisherman who last month pleaded guilty to the 2021 murder of overseas-based Guyanese businessman Hemraj Pardesi was last week sentenced to life in prison at the High Court in Berbice.

Mario Bissoondial, a fisherman of Cumberland Village, East Canje, Berbice late last month appeared at the High Court in Berbice before Justice Jo-Ann Barlow where he had entered his guilty plea.

In August, 2021, Bissoondial was charged with murdering Pardesi at his Lot 9 Reliance Settlement house in the furtherance of a robbery.

Returning to court this week for sentencing, Bissoondial was given a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after completing twenty-four years. Additionally, it was ordered that Bissoondial receive counseling and benefit from skills training while being incarcerated.

Following the murder, police had arrested Bissoondial, who had reportedly confessed that he and another man were hired by a female that Pardesi shared a close relationship with, to rob him.

However, he alleged that during the robbery his accomplice used an iron bar to hit Pardesi after which they had a scuffle and Pardesi was strangled.

The duo then used Pardesi’s key to gain access to the upper flat of his home, from where they retrieved a bag of money.

Pardesi was found with a wound at the top of his head where it is suspected that he was initially struck. An autopsy gave the cause of his death as ligature strangulation and blunt trauma to the head.

The upper flat of his house was ransacked and it was suspected that the perpetrators carted off $800,000 that Pardesi reportedly withdrew from the bank the day prior for renovations to his premises.