Amy Annamunthodo murder accused gets new attorneys

MARLON King has retained new attorneys and will return to court on September 15.

King reappeared before Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas on Wednesday. His new attorneys are Mario Merritt and Karunaa Bisramsingh.

They told the judge they were now representing King but had not yet received instructions from him.

St Clair-Douglas adjourned the matter to September to give the new attorneys enough time to meet their client.

King has been ordered to be retried for the murder of his four-year-old stepdaughter Amy Emily Annamunthodo.

On July 29, the Court of Appeal ordered the new trial to be case-managed and heard expeditiously, as far as practicable, and for it to be immediately placed on a judge’s docket for case management.

The first case-management conference must be held no later than August 9, the court ordered.

Almost immediately it was assigned to Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas who held the first case-management conference on August 4.

King had successfully argued his appeal against conviction, which was quashed by a three-member Court of Appeal panel.

The court found several faults with the trial judge’s handling of the case in 2012.

King was sentenced to hang for Annamunthodo’s murder when he was convicted by a jury after six days of directions by then Justice Anthony Carmona.

Annamunthodo was tortured and beaten to death, burned with cigarettes, hung from her hair and beaten until her heart ruptured.

King was charged with killing the child – who weighed 33 pounds, was unable to speak properly and was under-developed – on May 15, 2006 at his home at Ste Madeleine Road, Marabella.

He was in a common-law relationship with the child’s mother, Anita.