Ramesh Nandlall, 28, was on Tuesday committed to stand trial for the murder of his wife. The ruling was handed down at the end of the Preliminary Inquiry by Magistrate Peter Hugh who told the accused that a prima facie case was made out against. Nandlall will face a judge and jury at the next practicable session of the Berbice Criminal Assizes.
He is accused of forcing his 27-year-old wife, Sattie Jagmohan of Lot 23 A Cotton Tree Village, West Coast Berbice, to consume a poisonous substance on Wednesday, February 3, 2021.
The woman died two weeks later at the Fort Wellington Hospital. According to reports, Jagmohan consumed a poisonous substance on February 3, 2021, after she was physically abused by her partner.
On the day in question, at about 18:40hrs, Police ranks responded to a telephone call from an anonymous caller about a man beating his wife in a house opposite the Cotton Tree Primary School.
The ranks went to the location where they contacted Jagmohan who related to them that her husband beat her and she drank poison. The woman was taken to the hospital. The ranks were informed that Nandlall was the one who gave the woman the poisonous substance to drink.
Dead: Sattie Jagmohan
However, when questioned, the woman maintained that she drank the poison of her own will. The woman later gave ranks a written statement outlining the nine years of physical abuse she sustained at the hands of her spouse.
She told ranks that she was at home watching television when Nandlall began using indecent language for her to open the door. She said he then pushed her into a wall in the living room causing her to fall to the floor.
He then dealt her a kick to her chest while she was lying on the ground. It was stated that while the woman was on the ground, Nandlall placed a cutlass to her neck and forced her to drink a green substance from a bottle.
It is alleged that out of fear, the woman drank it. When police visited the couple’s home, two cutlasses were found in the bathroom. A bottle containing the poisonous substance was also recovered.