CARL McHargh and Ryan Rankine were yesterday sentenced to death for the 1999 murder of Tahj Burrell – son of former Jamaica Football Federation boss, Captain Horace Burrell – and his friend, Jason Eldridge, son of Noel Eldridge, a former deputy commissioner of police.

Before the men were sentenced by Justice Basil Reid, defence attorney Earle Delisser appealed to the court not to impose the death penalty on his client Rankine, a higgler of 11 Cooreville Avenue, Kingston 20.

He argued that the Crown had failed to inform the accused men of the consequences of non-capital murder. “The penalty of death ought not to be held as an ambush to the accused person. The accused persons ought to be advised (by the Crown) of their rights and possible consequence. None of them were so informed of the consequences of capital murder, so the death penalty should not be given,” Delisser submitted.

But Justice Reid told the defence lawyer that use of the word ‘ambush’ was too strong in the context.

At the same time, prosecutor Bryan Sykes, a senior deputy director of public prosecutions, said the submission was not sustainable. “It is clear and unambiguous in light of the Offence Against the People Act (that the) ignorance of the defendants is not a legal obstacle to prevent the death sentence,” he submitted.

However, in handing down sentence Justice Reid said he would disregard evidence adduced that McHargh had chalked up 12 convictions over a decade ago.

McHargh and Rankine sat motionless in the dock while the sentence of death was passed. Dressed in a white shirt and gray pants with his beard unkempt, McHargh, when asked if he had anything to say before sentence was passed on him, shook his head, while Rankine muttered some inaudible sounds.

The court was told that McHargh, 32, an accountant of 17 Durham Avenue, Kingston 6, had 12 previous convictions for forgery and uttering forged documents.

Burrell and Eldridge were shot dead at the Northside Plaza by two men in a car, later identified to be McHardy and Rankine. Prosecution sources argued that the murder was driven by McHargh’s jealous obsession with a woman. The prosecution contended that the woman had dumped,

McHargh, with whom she had a child and was engaged to be married. She later became involved with Burrell.