Another man who had been serving a sentence for murder in Antigua and Barbuda will be repatriated to the country of his birth after his sentence was commuted by Governor General Sir Rodney Williams.
Joel Kwame’ Seraphin had pleaded guilty to the murder of Clinton Mannix in 2009 and was sentenced to 25 years. However, Seraphin served about 18 years before he got the reprieve.
Seraphin, who was in the custody of the Immigration Department, was returned to the Commonwealth of Dominica onboard a Sunrise Airways flight at 5pm yesterday following arrangements for him to leave the state and his ticket being purchased. He was also provided with a temporary travel document by the Immigration Department.
Immigration Officer Gregson Gardiner told the court that the 41-year-old man was declared a prohibited immigrant by the Chief Immigration Officer on April 25.
Seraphin had already received all his personal belongings from the prison, which his attorney Justin Simon KC had wanted to verify.
He, along with George Thomas and Andre Nibbs, was jointly charged with Mannix’s murder.
The evidence before the court at that time was that between November 5 and 6, 2009, the men took Mannix to a building in St John’s where they questioned him about a cocaine deal that went wrong.
Mannix’s hands were bound and he was taken to an isolated area in Yeptons where he was killed.
His bullet-riddled body was found on Dove Trail, just outside Yeptons Beach on the morning of November 6, 2009.
While the Dominican man was in prison, he was among the first set of inmates to benefit from a fully paid scholarship to cover the cost of online studies through a program called Seeds of Hope.
He graduated at the top of his class in 2022.
