Ten-year sentence for All Saints man overturned

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Gemal Benjamin got his first glimpse of freedom in the welcoming arms of his weeping father, since he was sentenced to 10 years in Her Majesty’s Prison in 2015 on an aggravated robbery conviction.

Benjamin won his appeal against his High Court conviction on the grounds that the trial judge did not properly instruct the jury on voice recognition evidence.

The 27 year old was allowed to leave the Halls of Justice (High Court) with his three relatives who were anxiously awaiting the outcome. The quartet hurried out of the courtroom, smiles abound.

When the decision was being read, the blank stare on the young man’s face changed instantly into a smile and then a wide grin.

A panel of justices in the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court of Appeal agreed that the voice identification made by one of the persons inside the Sunshine Laundromat was weak since, at the time of the robbery, the masked assailant only spoke a few words: “Give me de money.”

 

More in today’s Daily Observer.

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