| Re-Sentencing Judge Challenged |
By BBC Caribbean
August 1, 2007
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| The Grenada government will in September present its case challenging the suitability of the judge who presided over the re-sentencing of the Grenada 13. |
Former Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who represents the Grenada government, will raise the issue at the September 17 sitting of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal in St George's.
The British Privy Council had ordered the |
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| re-sentencing in February, after ruling that the original death sentences imposed on the 13 accused of killing then prime minister Maurice Bishop and several cabinet members, was unconstitutional. |
| However at the start of the hearing, there were calls for Justice Francis Belle to step down, after doubts were expressed about his impartiality. |
| The judge said he had considered not taking the case, but decided against that after resolving to follow the guidelines set out by the Privy Council. |
| Justice Belle ordered the release of three of the Grenada 13 in June. |
| The Keith Mitchell administration is also seeking a review of the judge's decision not to step down. |
| But former Attorney General Lloyd Noel, who was on the defence team, has described the government's move as an exercise in futility. |
| "Normally in criminal matters the prosecution has no right appealing any sentence," Mr. Noel told BBC Caribbean. |
| "So not being able to appeal the sentence, they're going the roundabout way by appealing the decision of the judge not to have recused himself, clearly in the hope of getting the matter before the court of appeal," he said. |
| Mr. Noel also accused the government of playing politics with the case, and charged that it should have raised its objections to Justice Belle's appointment to the hearing from the beginning. |
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