Trongsa dzongkhag court sentenced a 46-year-old man to two life imprisonment and nine years and one month in prison yesterday for the murder of a 60-year-old woman and her 16-year-old grandson in Kuengarabten, Trongsa in August 2015.
Kado from Getana in Chukha, who worked as a security guard, was given a life imprisonment for murdering the 60-year-old businesswoman in Kuengarabten.
The 139-paged judgment stated that Kado had planned to murder the woman since she accused him of stealing Nu 1,000 from her cashbox in 2013 and for defaming him since then.
It stated that he was found guilty of violating section 138 of the Penal Code of Bhutan, which states, “A defendant shall be guilty of the offence of murder, if the defendant commits a homicide knowingly and deliberately with premeditated malice.”
The crime is graded as a first-degree felony.
Kado was also given another life imprisonment for murdering the woman’s 16-year-old grandson, who was a class VII student.
It stated that Kado, after murdering the woman by hacking her neck, saw the boy coming out of another room and kicked him several times and then hacked him on the back and also severed his hand when he tried to hold the knife.
He was also sentenced to nine years in prison for armed robbery, as he broke the cashbox and took Nu 10,000 and corals.
Kado was also sentenced one month in prison for obstructing or hindering prosecution. He was found guilty of violating section 245 (e) of the Penal Code for destroying evidence, as he washed off all the clothes he wore while committing the crime, throwing off the 46cms long knife he used as murder weapon off a cliff.
The judgment stated that the defendant, however, left a knife cover at the crime scene and five people had come forward to give statements before court and police that they saw him carrying the knife.
Although Kado confessed committing the crime to police initially, he retracted the confession before court, claiming he made the confession under duress. The court ruled that there was no duress as all the statements he submitted to police were recorded in front of witnesses and police also submitted video clips of his confession, which did not show any signs of duress.
The court also ruled there were more than 18 evidences, including a forensic report from Bangkok, which matches the footprints at the crime scene with the pair of shoes seized from Kado’s home that proved the defendant guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
The judgment stated that the defendant committed the murders in an extremely grotesque, diabolical and dastardly manner. “Therefore, the defendant had been given the severest of punishment. The imposition of appropriate punishment is the manner in which the court respond to society’s cry for justice.”
The court ordered that the defendant should pay Nu 1,080,000 to the victims’ family members, as compensation, expenses for last rites and restitution of the Nu 10,000 he stole. The court also ordered Kado to return the eight corals to the deceased’s daughter. Kado also has a past criminal record of Trongsa court sentencing him to a year and three months in prison for burglary.
Tashi Dema