Sentenced to death – Woman who paid to have father killed, hitman found guilty

Bibi Nazeela Habiboodean, the woman who reportedly paid to have her elderly father killed in 2008, and Linden Lewis – the hitman who carried out the heinous act – were on Friday found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death.

Habiboodean and Lewis were on trial before Justice Sandil Kissoon at the Georgetown High Court and had denied that on February 15, 2008, they murdered 76-year-old Habiboodean.

The jury, after deliberating for almost two hours, returned with unanimous guilty verdicts against the duo.  They both maintained their innocence after the jury delivered their verdicts.

The Judge, while highlighting the gruesome and calculated manner in which the elderly man died, said that Bibi was motivated by wealth and greed.  As such, the Judge imposed the death sentence against both of them.

The duo is represented by attorneys Latchmie Rahamat and Roger Yearwood and evidence was led by Senior State Counsel Lisa Cave.

It is alleged that Lewis, known as ‘Bullet’, was the hit-man who was hired by Bibi to kill her father on February 15, 2008. Habiboodean was the owner of a gas station at Ruby, East Bank Essequibo; he died at a hospital after being badly beaten in his home.

His daughter turned herself in at the Leonora Police Station, West Coast Demerara, in 2016 and had implicated other persons in the murder.

Lewis was arrested in connection with the murder that occurred at Good Hope, East Bank Essequibo, and reportedly confessed to the brutal crime.

In 2008, shortly after the incident, police had arrested Bibi and Terry Lewton, a former employee of the late Habiboodean. They were charged for the businessman’s murder but were freed by a Magistrate because of insufficient evidence regarding their implication.