Selwyn Foye gets life for the murder of Percy Browne

Selwyn ‘Kashie’ Foye has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

Justice Frederick Bruce Lyle handed down the sentence on Tuesday at the High Court in Kingstown at a sentencing hearing.

Foye was convicted by a 12-member jury last December for the October 2, 2004 murder of Percy Browne. However, his sentencing had been deferred.

The court heard that Browne had been at John Thomas’s shop in Carierre having a “cookout” at about 5 p.m. on the October 2, 2004. One witness giving evidence said when Browne left the shop around 9 p.m. he heard two gunshots fired. He then saw Browne running back to the shop and screaming for help. He was taken to the Levi Latham Health Centre, then to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital where he succumbed to the gunshot wounds to his abdomen.

In Foye’s evidence he said that he was at Leonni Guy’s shop looking at a domino match when the incident took place. Foye also told the court that he never heard that Percy Browne got shot but instead heard that someone was shot and that he only saw Browne earlier in the day at the cookout. Foye said that he was always the target of the police anytime there was an incident in the area.

Acting Director of Public Prosecutions, Colin Williams said that he had been seeking the death penalty at first but did not pursue it. He said that his decision came following a judgement in the High Court where two young men, Shorn George and Earlando Lampkin were convicted of the murder of police officer Elson ‘Raca’ Richardson and had been given a life sentence.

A large stone had been dropped on Richardson’s head numerous times by the defendants just before they rolled him over a cliff. Williams said that since those convicts did not receive the death penalty he decided not to pursue a death sentence for Foye.