Duo confess to killing boat captain during 2017 piracy attack

Two men on Monday pleaded guilty to the murder of Corentyne boat captain, Mahadeo Ramdehol, also known as ‘Chico,’ who was killed during a piracy attack in 2017.

Doodnauth Singh, 63, and Khemraj Narsayah, 44, both fishermen from Rose Hall, Corentyne, were on trial before Justice Navindra Singh at the Berbice High Court, where the trial was underway before a 12-member jury.  The men had initially denied the capital offence.

However, during their trial on Monday, the pair opted to plead guilty and admitted that on May 16, 2017, in the river between Tain Village and Rose Hall on the Corentyne foreshore, they murdered the 57-year-old boat captain during the act of piracy.

Sentencing was adjourned until February 20, and the jury was discharged from the case. The state was represented by Prosecutor Nafeeza Baig.

According to reports, on the day in question about 18:30hrs, the duo, while being armed with a cutlass, went out into the Corentyne River, where they attacked the boat captain, and his two crewmen, Arjun Permaul and Parmanand Nandan.

After relieving the victims of some fish and their outboard engine, they chopped Ramdehol on the head with a cutlass and forced the victims to jump overboard.

Ramdehol’s body was found the following day near the Rose Hall foreshore. A postmortem revealed that he had drowned.