Labourer pleads guilty to WCB steel rod murder

The labourer who struck a West Coast Berbice man with a steel rod in March 2019 leading to his death yesterday pleaded guilty to murder at the High Court in Berbice.

Kareem Charles, a labourer of Bennett Dam, Rosignol, West Bank Berbice, yesterday appeared before Justice Simone Morris Ramlall where he pleaded guilty to the murder of Arshad Ali.

He will return to court on June 27 for sentencing. Attorney at Law, Muntaz Ali yesterday presented the facts of the matter to the court which stated that the accused and Ali and their relatives had a prior problem.

On the day of the incident, while the accused was heading home after selling coconuts, he saw Ali riding his motorcycle passing him in the opposite direction.

He then took a steel rod from his bicycle which he used to peel his coconuts and gave Ali a ‘hard jook’ to his head.

The accused claimed that it was what his spirit told him to do. He then left the weapon at the scene and went home.

After being arrested the accused was shown the steel rod which the police found at the crime scene and he admitted that it was the one which he used to inflict injuries on Ali.

Ali was taken to the New Amsterdam Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead. A post-mortem examination revealed the cause of his death to be shock with cerebral haemorrhage and laceration of the brain and fractures of the skull.