Behind prison walls

…a murder convict tells of 19 years on death row

By Danielle Campbell

In 1993, Ganga Deolall was a 33-year-old seaman, living his dreams and enjoying an average life in the countryside. He lived at Lot 11 Unity Street, La Grange, West Bank Demerara with his wife and three young children; ages 10, 11, and 13.

However, the events on the night of October 16, 1993 drastically changed Deolall’s life, forever. The body of 29-year-old Yvette Lall washed up at the La Grange koker with a slab of concrete in her stomach and a crankshaft tied to it. The victim’s head had been placed in a plastic bag, and her intestines removed from her gaping stomach before she was submerged in the Demerara River.
Lall, an attractive seamstress, who was employed with the Wilsun’s Garment Factory at Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, had been strangled and gutted with a knife. Retracing the victim’s steps, witnesses said she had left work around 17: 00h, embarked on a minibus and was reportedly seen making her way into Unity Street around 18: 30h that evening.
However, Lall, who was raising a six-year-old son and lived with an older sister, never made it home.

Hellish nightmare
From that day, Deolall’s life became a script for a horror story that had been pulled straight from a nightmarish movie. Police arrested Deolall on October 26, 1993 for Lall’s murder and charged him on November 3, 1993. Despite proclaiming his innocence and telling police his version, Deolall said he was forced to admit to the killing after investigators, seeking a confession, repeatedly slammed his testicles into a desk drawer.
His younger brother was also shot in the hip, allegedly after attacking a police rank with a knife during their investigation. Relatives claimed that Deolall was so badly beaten that prison officials refused to admit him to the Camp Street facility after his arraignment.
The then Director of Public Prosecutions, Ian Chang admitted that the prisoner had “severe marks of violence” that required medical attention. Deolall admitted that he knew Lall and her sister very well since they lived a few houses away, but he denied making sexual advances or killing the woman.
He endured a two-year preliminary inquiry before then Magistrate William Ramlal, who found enough evidence for a trial by judge and jury. The matter was then sent to the High Court criminal sessions.
At the 1995 October session, Justice Cecil Kennard and a 12-member jury listened to Deolall’s case and thought there was sufficient compelling evidence to convict him of the offence of murder. On November 22, 1995, Deolall was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging.
Not satisfied by this ruling, Deolall appealed his sentence and on January 31, 1997, the Appellate Court panel of judges confirmed Deolall’s punishment. On February 3, 2000, a death warrant was read to Deolall which stated that he was to be executed in a matter of five days on February 8.
Deolall’s lawyers, including former Attorney General Doodnauth Singh and Nigel Hughes, hurriedly approached the court, and were granted a stay of execution from Justice BS Roy.
On February 7, 2000, a motion was filed that would have allowed lawyers to argue for a retrial or second hearing, but since then, the matter has not come up for further deliberations owing to Deolall’s exhausted financial resources.
A subsequent petition to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) has stalled all proceedings that would have allowed the state to carry out the hanging of death row inmates.
This was based on several grounds of technicality, including that former President Bharrat Jagdeo was not an executive head of state at the time he signed the death warrants.
“From then to now, I am here on death row and from 1997 I became a diabetic. I used to get treatment in jail, but then after there was no longer treatment here, they started taking me to the hospital,” Deolall revealed during a recent visit to the medical clinic.
His hopes of securing freedom were further dashed in 2008, when 12 men were brutally gunned down in Bartica, resulting in public outrage and renewed calls for hangings to resume.
Back then, President Jagdeo had vowed to sign all death warrants which landed on his desk and strictly apply the death penalty to those convicted. The then president had urged Barticians to send a petition to the chancellor of the judiciary to speed up the process, which was stalled due to various legal challenges.

Commuting death sentences
The oldest challenge is the constitutional motion by Noel Thomas and Abdool Yasseen, (who died in prison in 2002), contesting the appointment of the appellate court justices, on the ground that it was contrary to recommendations of the Judicial Service Commission.
Thomas has been on death row since 1988, when he and Abdool Yasseen were sentenced for the murder of Yasseen’s brother.
Thomas’s sentence was recently commuted to life by acting Chief Justice Ian Chang after lawyers Nigel Hughes, Ronald Burch-Smith and Jainarayan Singh approached the court.
Chang explaining that the reason behind his decision to commute the sentences of four death row inmates, said that all of the men had served what is considered to be a life sentence.
He further stated that the men would now have to rely on the Committee of the Prerogative Board of Mercy to petition their eventual release from prison. The chief justice added that other prisoners on death row can follow suit by simply preparing an application for the commuting of their death sentences.
The last executions at the Georgetown Prison were on August 25, 1997, when Michael Archer and Peter Adams were hanged for the 1986 robbery/ murder in Berbice. The previous year, Ayube Khan and Rockliffe Ross were hanged four months apart.
At the Georgetown Prison, death row inmates are isolated from the general prison population in a separate cellblock which can accommodate a maximum of 30 persons, with each inmate occupying a separate cell. Deolall became notorious for staging frequent hunger strikes in protest of inadequate medical attention, meals, poor prison conditions, and death threats.
Now, 53 years old and almost blind in one eye due to his diabetic state, the murder convict is desperate for a second chance at life. A few years ago, he was forced to undergo a surgical procedure to remove one of his testicles because of the extent of the damage suffered.
Deolall is now on a relentless quest to find someone who can secure his release, but until then, he is making the most of life behind prison walls.

Traditional death penalty views
Most Guyanese still have strong views about the fate of death row inmates and whether those sentences should be commuted to life.
Prior to demitting office in 2011, President Jagdeo said that prisoners condemned to die must stay on death row as there would be no repeal of the death penalty law under his watch. “A lot of horrible people are on death row, murderers (who) killed babies, killed women and not in a crime of passion.”
President Jagdeo had said that death row inmates have cold-bloodedly murdered and mutilated their victims and some have even violated the bodies in the most horrendous ways.
According to him, those murderers who invade people’s homes to plunder, loot and kill their victims, after the fact, should also suffer the same fate.
“There are others too who would rob a man of everything he has and on their way out, they would take out a gun and shoot him in the head. How can you be merciful to those people? I’m human and I’m flawed. Maybe it takes divine powers to be merciful,” Jagdeo said.
However, he admitted that there are a few with extenuating circumstances who can be considered for life sentences and possible release, should they apply to the Prerogative Board of Mercy. “But some people shouldn’t even be considered. It’s a non-starter,” Jagdeo stressed.

Judicial review
Death row inmates were hopeful of a chance to seek judicial review after a 2010 amendment to the Criminal Law Offences Act ruled out the mandatory death penalty for those convicted of murder. However, the government maintained that the review will not have a retroactive effect, which means that persons who have already been reviewed will not get a second chance to appeal.
The administration pointed out that reviews of persons on death row have been ongoing, but those which have been completed will not be reassessed. Parliament has also taken a decision that the review of persons facing capital punishment for murder will “move forward”, but will not be retroactive to those already evaluated. The National Assembly unanimously passed legislation in October 2010 which allows for punishment other than the death penalty for various categories of murder.
Although, the death penalty remains on the books, it would only be applicable in the extreme cases where persons are found guilty of the murder of law enforcement officials, contract murders, and those calculated and designed to create public fear.
These category one murders will all attract an alternative of a term of life imprisonment while murders considered in category two will attract life imprisonment or punishment deemed appropriate by the court, which must not be less than 15 years.
A few months ago, the Guyana Human Rights Association said it was “open” to making a case for those persons who have already spent more than a life sentence on death row.
GHRA President Mike McCormack noted that several of the 32 inmates on death row have been there longer than a life sentence.