Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 21/Jan 20:00

Convicted killer Natasha de Leon seeks freedom

Convicted killer Natasha de Leon has appealed a judge’s decision to decline to review her life sentence for a 1993 murder during a resentencing exercise for another murder. In her appeal, de Leon has asked the Appeal Court to review her life sentence and order her release forthwith. On January 31, 2024, Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas resentenced de Leon for the brutal murder of Princes Town taxi driver Chandranath Maharaj in 1993. Her resentencing for Maharaj’s murder came after her conviction was commuted, in keeping with previous rulings by the Privy Council and the Court of Appeal. De Leon and her common-law husband Darrin Thomas were tried and convicted on November 9, 1995, for Maharaj’s murder and were sentenced to death. Their convictions were then commuted to life in prison in 2008. In March 2023, the High Court ordered that 23 convicted killers whose sentences had been commuted to life could be resentenced by the court. These orders were in keeping with the Privy Council ruling on commuted life sentences for murder convicts in the case of Naresh Boodram. At her resentencing hearing, de Leon’s attorney Peter Carter invited the judge to review her other sentence, imposed in 2001 by then Justice Paula-Mae Weekes. De Leon and her brother Andre de Leon had been convicted of manslaughter for the murder of taxi driver Lambert Dookoo, which took place a month after Maharaj’s murder. Weekes ordered de Leon to serve a life sentence and not to be released in less than 20 years. Thomas was acquitted of Dookoo's murder. St Clair-Douglas refused to entertain de Leon’s application to review the sentence of manslaughter for Dookoo's death. He said that the review was for the Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon (the Mercy Committee), not a judge. In her appeal, de Leon argues that her constitutional right to a fair hearing by an independent tribunal was infringed, and challenges the judge's ruling that the review process under Rule 281 of the Prison Rules is appropriate. Carter contended that St Clair-Douglas had the inherent jurisdiction to review the sentence, as the court maintains oversight once the minimum term has been served. Carter further argued that leaving such reviews to the executive would violate the principle of separation of powers. The Office of the DPP, represented by Tracy Vidale, opposed the appeal, saying de Leon had no right of appeal in this context and did not challenge her detention's legality through proper legal avenues. The Court of Appeal, presided over by Justices Gillian Lucky, Malcolm Holdip, and Carla Brown-Antoine, reserved its ruling after hearing submissions. The judges acknowledged the case’s precedent-setting nature and sought further arguments. The judges asked the attorneys to consider that clemency through a presidential pardon was a mechanism for ending a life sentence, while also suggesting that a constitutional challenge or judicial review could be other avenues to challenge continued detention after a “minimum term” has elapsed. Vidale also invited the judges to define the parameters of a life sentence in Trinidad and Tobago. In addition to the two murders, de Leon was also charged with the murder of Ruben Paul Jaskaran, which took place on December 28, 1992. The prosecution of that matter was stayed by then-acting judge Ian Stuart Brook on March 3, 2006, because of a 13-year delay. His ruling came after the Privy Council reinstated the death penalty as the only punishment for murder. For Maharaj's murder, St Clair-Douglas imposed a 33-year sentence, which, he said, was her substituted sentence. The sentence was ordered to run from the date of her conviction. Having already spent 28 years and three months in prison, she was left with two years and a month left to serve with hard labour. Although Vidale argued the appeal for the Office of the DPP on January 21, the “groundwork” of submissions was done by special prosecutor Randall Hector, whose work was acknowledged by the judges. Hector was shoot dead after leaving church on December 31. The post Convicted killer Natasha de Leon seeks freedom appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.