Murder sentence of Dominican national commuted by Antigua Governor General

The murder sentence of Joel Kwame Seraphin, 41 a Dominican national has been commuted by Governor General Sir Dennis Williams of Antigua and he has returned to Dominica. Seraphine served 16 years in an Antiguan prison for murder.

In 2009, Seraphin along with two Antiguan men were found guilty of the murder of Clinton Mannix in Antigua and Barbuda. According to evidence produced during the trial, the three men abducted Mannix, and had him bound before riddling him with bullets over a failed cocaine transaction.

Upon commuting the sentence of Seraphine, he was declared a prohibited immigrant and immediately transported back to Dominica. 

While in prison, Seraphin benefited from a special program called Seeds of Hope, which provided scholarships to inmates for online studies. The program was offered by the University of the West Indies and he was enrolled in a course entitled ‘Entrepreneurship: The Power of an Idea’.

Seraphine was reportedly first in his class when he graduated in 2022.