MPs among group charged with illegal procession after petition ruling:

APNU+AFC Members of Parliament (MPs) Annette Ferguson and Christopher Jones were among a group of persons who were charged on Friday with taking part in a recent illegal procession. Ferguson, Jones, Mark Griffith, Travis Ellis, Gordon Lucas, Gary Morris, Malcom Ballison and George Halley are jointly charged with the offence, which their attorneys claimed were intended to target the opposition MPs and their supporters. The charge was read to the MPs and four of their co-accused by Senior Magistrate Leron Daly in a city court. The charge states that on April 26, between Croal and Regent streets, Georgetown, they took part in a procession without permission of the Chief Officer of police having first been obtained. Ferguson, Jones, Griffith, Ellis, Lucas and Halley appeared pleaded not guilty to the charge. A summons was issued by the Magistrate for Morris and Ballison, who were absent from the hearing. The offence was allegedly committed following the ruling by Chief Justice Roxane George on the APNU+AFC elections petition, which saw some coalition supporters taking to the streets after to protest the decision.

Orpheus Johnson gets life sentences for killing two men:

Citing what was described as the “reckless, callous and merciless” manner in which Orpheus Johnson shot and killed two men and then attempted to murder the fiancée and 18-month-old child of one of them, a judge last week sentenced him to two life sentences. Among other things, Justice Sandil Kissoon described Johnson as a “serious danger to society” whose existence thus far “speaks of a life of crime.” The cases against Johnson, the judge said, makes for a “homicide novel.” Johnson had initially been indicted with murdering Travis Rudder and Gladstone George in 2015, but pleaded last month to the lesser offences of manslaughter in relation to both killings. His sentencing had been deferred for a probation report from which the court heard that Johnson’s life had been characterized by crime from his teenage years. Though Johnson had willingly accepted the roles he had played in each of the killings, and admitted that he had also attempted to murder Rudder’s fiancée, Mawanza Gill, and their 18-month-old son, Jaheem Rudder; he said that he was innocent of the charges leveled against him. “I’m innocent. It wasn’t my fault. But I sorry bad to the family. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he told the judge in brief remarks.