A 26-year-old man who admitted to killing a businessman and stealing his car over a decade ago has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Nicholas Khan received the sentence from High Court Judge Hayden St Clair-Douglas in the Port-of-Spain High Court on Tuesday, almost 11 months after he had pleaded guilty to killing 53-year-old Ricky Mohammed.
Khan was initially charged with Mohammed’s murder but was able to plead guilty under the felony-murder rule.
Under the rule, judges are allowed to waive the mandatory death sentence for murder and accept guilty pleas in circumstances where a death occurred during the commission of a lesser criminal offence, usually robbery.
Khan is expected to be released in nine years and eight months as he was given a one-third discount for his guilty plea and the time he spent on remand was deducted from his sentence.
St Clair-Douglas also shaved off three years from Khan sentence because the prisoner had expressed remorse for his actions and had been described as a model prisoner by prison officials.
He noted that since entering the prison system at age 17, Khan was able to obtain several education qualifications and was involved in counselling fellow prisoners.
Mohammed was killed on October 17, 2007, during a robbery.
Khan claimed that he and a friend, who was never arrested by police, went to rob Mohammed but the victim resisted.
Mohammed’s relatives found his body in his upholstery shop located along the Southern Main Road in Curepe after he failed to return home from work the previous evening. His Toyota Corolla was missing.
An autopsy revealed that Mohammed was bludgeoned to death with an industrial stapler.
St Clair-Douglas sentenced Khan to seven years in prison for stealing Mohammed’s car but ordered that that sentence run concurrently with the 30-year sentence.
In passing the sentence, St Clair-Douglas said there were no eyewitnesses to the crime and it was unclear what had transpired in Mohammed’s store.
“It cannot be stated it was a significant violent attack,” St Clair-Douglas said.
However, he noted that Mohammed’s murder had caused significant trauma to his wife and two children.