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THREE Guyanese men who spent just over 39 years in prison, having been found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of a man in South Trinidad in 1985, have been released.

On Wednesday, Justice Tricia Hudlin-Cooper resentenced the trio of Deolal Sukhram, 69, Girijadat Sewpersaud, 58, and Jainarine Persaud, 67, to time served. They were all found guilty in 1988 of murdering Ashton Ramkhalawansingh and then dumping his body in a septic tank.

Six years after the death sentence was imposed, it was commuted to life in prison in accordance with the 1993 landmark ruling in the Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan. In that case, the Privy Council held that it would amount to cruel and unusual punishment for inmates to be executed after spending more than five years on death row.