Maraval man pleads guilty to 2009 chopping death of friend

A MARAVAL man who pleaded guilty to playing a part in the chopping death of one of his friends in 2009 was urged to “walk on the right side” now that he has been released from prison.

On Thursday, Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas sentenced Kareem Edwards to 12 years after accepting the terms of a plea deal with the State for him to plead guilty to manslaughter.

Edwards was before the judge charged with the October 3, 2009, murder of his friend Kurt Blaize of Boissiere No 1, Maraval.

Because the facts of the case demonstrated there was an altercation between the two and another man over a hat with Blaize responding to a lash on the back with a piece of wood “in a belligerent manner” to exact revenge, Edwards was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge on the basis of provocation.

After St Clair-Douglas calculated a discount for the element of aggression on Blaize’s part, Edwards’s guilty plea, and the 12 years and ten months he has spent in prison, he said his sentence had already been served.

The judge wished Edwards good luck and offered him some advice, “I would like to suggest to you to walk on the right side, You have learned a lesson that trouble is easy to find you and you can find yourself in a situation as quick as that. Learn from your mistake and understand what has happened.

“Best of luck to you sir.”

Edwards was represented by attorneys Ulric Skerritt and public defender Michelle Gonzalez.

Prosecutor Maria Lyons-Edwards, in presenting the facts of the case, said after Blaize was hit on the back with a piece of wood by another man identified as Mustapha, he went to his girlfriend’s home to vent, telling her he “was not taking that.”

“Them attack me, I going and kill Mustapha tonight, I going and chop him up”, yuh see me, I gonna stab up Mustapha before I go home, I don’t care what happen.”

He searched for a cutlass, eventually getting one from a neighbour, before telling his girlfriend, “Brittany take my hat eh, Britney take my hat and doh want to geh me it back. And just so Mustapha hit me a piece of wood in my back. Just the other day I watch him get slap up.”

“...When my driver come I gonna pack my bag in he car and ah gonna run up in he house. Watch and yuh go see something. I could dead tonight I doh care. I swear on my daughter I gonna chop up Mustapha.”

Lyon-Edwards said when his driver came, Blaize left and when his girlfriend and another woman were walking out the road, they saw him running with a bloody jersey, and running behind him were Edwards, Mustapha, and another man. Edwards had a knife and the other two, cutlasses.

Blaize ran past the women, telling the men “I goh kill yuh tonight.” When he got to the corner of Harold and Vallot Street, Edwards ran up to him and stabbed him while telling him, “Yuh m—-- c— yuh dead tonight.”

Blaize was stabbed four times and his lungs were punctured and some of his teeth were broken or fractured. He was found lying on the road close to the drain by the Boissiere RC School, bleeding and fighting to breathe. He died before the ambulance arrived.

Edwards was first arrested on November 30, 2009, interviewed by police, and released after telling them he had nothing to say and knew nothing about the murder.

On December 7, 2009, he was re-arrested and charged with Blaize’s murder the next day.