2022 fiery death of Berbice woman-Husband freed of murder, manslaughter charges

Dipnarine Seelall, also known as “Narei”, was on Friday freed of the charge of killing his wife, Tavita Natasha Lall, after a jury at the Berbice High Court returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty. The jury also unanimously found Seelall not guilty of the lesser offence of manslaughter, bringing an end to the trial before Justice Gino Persaud. State Counsel Merissa Edwards prosecuted the case, while Attorney-at-Law Vinay Punwa represented Seelall. Lall, a 42-year-old mother of four and cleaner attached to the Tagore Memorial Secondary School, sustained severe burns during an incident at the couple’s Number 64 Village, Corentyne home on January 7, 2022. She subsequently died while receiving treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC). Before the jury retired on Friday, both the prosecution and defence made their closing addresses, presenting sharply different accounts of how Lall came to be burnt. Punwa reminded the jury that only two persons were present when the incident occurred, Lall and the accused. The defence questioned the prosecution’s case that Seelall pushed his wife into a kerosene stove, pointing to evidence concerning the position of the stove when Police subsequently arrived.

“The prosecution wants you to believe that he pushed her into the stove. The stove did not move. How does that make sense?” the Defence Attorney asked the jury. Punwa also relied on evidence which emerged during the trial concerning Lall’s previous suicide attempts. He pointed to testimony that she had said that whenever she had problems, she would kill herself, and that there had been two previous attempts to take her own life. The defence also referred to a statement Lall had given to Police in which she reportedly related that her husband told her, “If you want to burn yourself, dead.” Punwa further drew the jury’s attention to evidence that while Lall was being transported by ambulance, she asked her mother to forgive her. “They are trying to pin the blame on this innocent man,” the Defence Attorney told the jury.

Edwards, however, urged the jury not to speculate about why Lall asked her mother for forgiveness. The prosecutor acknowledged the evidence from Lall’s mother concerning previous suicide attempts when her daughter experienced problems with her husband, but directed the jury’s attention to what Lall reportedly told several persons following the January 2022 incident. According to the prosecution, Lall told persons she interacted with after being burnt that it was her husband who pushed her into the stove. Edwards reminded the jury that Lall’s son, daughter-in-law and a doctor had given evidence that she told them Seelall had pushed her.