Guyana court sentences two pirates to death for 2018 attack
Two men found guilty of high seas pirate assaults that murdered seven fisherman off the coast of Guyana in 2018 were sentenced to death by a Guyanese court, and authorities say they have broken the back of a group that preyed on fishermen for years.
In a dispute over access to excellent fishing grounds, Nakool Manohar, 45, and Premnauth Persaud, 48, were convicted of masterminding an attack on a number of fishing vessels in waters near the neighboring South American country of Suriname. Seven fisherman died, while about a dozen others were rescued after drifting for days on the waves.
Some of the men were tossed overboard with their hands tied or burdened down with boat batteries, according to police. Others were allegedly slashed with machetes or burned with hot engine oil before being thrown into the Atlantic Ocean.
After a jury delivered guilty verdicts, Justice Navindra Singh sentenced the men on Tuesday, calling the attacks “heinous” and stating there was “no reason not to inflict the death penalty.”
“To allow them to be released into society at any time would be foolish and irresponsible of the court,” the judge stated.
He described their crimes as “gruesome, horrible, and cold-blooded” as he sentenced them to death by hanging.
The men can appeal the verdict to the local court of appeals as well as the Caribbean Court of Justice in Trinidad, which is Guyana’s final court. Their lawyer declined to comment on their plans on Thursday.
While the death penalty by hanging is still on the books in Guyana, no one has been executed since 1997, and authorities have made little effort to enforce death sentences passed by courts. More than a dozen people are on death row in Guyana, some of whom were convicted more than two decades ago.
Authorities have thus far resisted lobbying efforts by the European Union and other international rights organizations to remove hanging from the statute books. In certain cases, appeals courts commuted death sentences to life in prison, allowing inmates on execution row to simply wait their turn behind bars.
Authorities have been fighting such attacks along the southern coast with Suriname and less frequently in the northwest towards Venezuela until the April 2018 strike. At the time, police blamed the attacks on Venezuelan gangs.
In the last decade, police have recorded nearly 30 piracy-related deaths. However, police regional commander Shiv Bacchus told The Associated Press on Thursday that piracy had not been a serious issue in the Berbice-Suriname border region since the suspects were apprehended.
“We didn’t have any last year. This year, there are none. I have to agree that the arrest and punishment of individuals involved resulted in a 100% reduction “According to Bacchus.
Police also attribute the huge decrease in incidents to the capture and imprisonment of several Guyanese pirates in Suriname during the last decade.
