Georgetown: Forty years after he was convicted for being in possession of a walkie-talkie that exploded and killed his brother – Dr Walter Rodney, the political activist and Guyanese intellectual Donald Horatio Rodney was freed on Tuesday after the Court of Appeal set aside his conviction and sentence.
Donald Rodney is an attorney but because of the conviction he has not been able to practice in Guyana. He was represented in the appeal by attorney-at-law, Sanjeev Datadin.
This was done on the concession by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, that his right to a fair trial had been breached given the number of years the case took to be heard.
The DPP had also stated that while there was evidence to show that Donald Rodney did have the walkie-talkie, there was not enough evidence to show that he knew that an explosive device was placed inside the walkie-talkie.
Dr Rodney, at the time an agitator against the then Forbes Burnham government, was killed on June 13, 1980, when the walkie-talkie was handed to him as he sat in a car a short distance away from Georgetown Prison.
Donald Rodney was charged with possession of explosives shortly after and was convicted in 1982; he has been out on bail pending the appeal.
Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, thanked the DPP for the concession and said it would have been great if it had come earlier.
Donald Rodney, 69, expressed relief that a conviction that tied him to an explosion that killed his brother, Dr Walter Rodney almost 41 years ago, has finally been overturned.
He qualified as a lawyer in 2009 in Trinidad and started practising two years later. He has not been able to practice in Guyana. But now that the conviction has been overturned, he said he plans to start the process to get admitted to the bar and practice here.
Donald Rodney returned to Guyana permanently in 2017, spending all the time since in pursuing his appeal.
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