Noel Thomas paroled after 31 years in jail for murder
- landmark case saw historic deliberations on death penalty
After spending a combined 64 years on death row for two separate murders, Noel Thomas and Muntaz Ali yesterday walked out the Lusignan Prison freed men after being granted parole.
Their petitions had been before the Parole Board for some six years during which numerous hearings were facilitated and submissions made on Ali’s behalf by his attorney Ronald Burch-Smith.
Thomas had presented his own petition.
The lengthy process finally came to a conclusion late last week, culminating in Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan signing the licences which effectively caters for the release of the new parolees.
Thomas who will be celebrating his 60th birthday in December now gets a taste of freedom after spending 31 years behind bars, while it has been 33 years for 52year-old Ali.
Thomas had been convicted and sentenced to death along with Abdool Salim Yassin for the 1987 murder of the latter’s brother—Abdool Kaleem Yassin who was shot dead in his bed at his Riverstown, Essequibo Coast home on the night of March 18, 1987.
On October 12, 2002 Thomas’ co-convict died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation after a prolonged illness.
Ali, meanwhile, had been convicted and sentenced to death along with Terrence Sahadeo and Shireen Khan for the 1985 murder of 18year-old Roshani Kassim whom they also brutally raped and at her Sheet Anchor home, East Canjie Berbice.
The case of convicted duo Thomas and Yassin would, however, over the years go on to be a popular one—holding academic significance and setting judicial precedent by which courts would later become bound to follow.
Noose
“Thomas and Yassin,” as the case is popularly called and commonly referred to by many, especially members of the legal fraternity and law students alike, is historically known for the many constitutional challenges mounted by the two in a bid to escape the hangman’s noose.
The two made a series of petitions both before the local courts and even all the way to the United Nations Human Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
“Thomas and Yassin,” is the (locus classicus)—the local deciding authority to challenges of “cruel and inhumane punishment” often raised by death row inmates as reasons they should not be sent to the gallows.
This case sits on the same precedent wavelength with that of its Jamaican equal, commonly referred to as “Pratt and Morgan” case in which Earl Pratt and Ivan Morgan who had also mounted a series of challenges to the death sentences imposed against them after their convictions for murder also.
The cases of Thomas and Yassin and Pratt and Morgan established the judicial precedent which argues that all sentences where persons have been condemned to death and have been on death row for more than five years without being hanged, amounts to cruel and inhumane punishment.
Once such a state of affairs exists, the cases argue further that such sentences would warrant a commutation of to life imprisonment.
In the case of Guyana, however, as is evident, it does not bar a lifer from applying for parole which may be granted after considering such factors as the applicant’s eligibility and suitability.
The Parole Act of the Laws of Guyana Cap 11:08 stipulates the criteria to be satisfied for a convict applying to be paroled. Eligibility does not by itself, however, guarantee parole, as a number of variables will have to be assessed on a case by case basis to determine the applicant’s suitability for release into society.
To bolster their case against being hanged, death row prisoners in Guyana also rely primarily on Article 141 (1) of the constitution which states, “No person shall be subjected to torture or to inhumane or degrading punishment or other treatment.”
Subsection (2) of the Article meanwhile provides, “Nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of this article to the extent that the law in question authorizes the infliction of any punish-