The public deserves to be told why three men who brutally stabbed Jermaine Pitcher to death last year were charged with manslaughter rather than murder, an Opposition MP said this week.

John Barritt, the United Bermuda Party's Shadow Legislative Affairs Minister, spoke out after the family of the stabbing victim and other members of the public questioned the way in which the case was handled by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

"This is a case where someone's life was lost," said Mr. Barritt. "The public deserves an explanation."

Three men have now been convicted of Mr. Pitcher's killing - two on guilty pleas and one by a jury - but many feel the stabbing death should have warranted a murder charge and are asking why the charges were reduced.

Mr. Barritt said that without an explanation as to why the lesser charge of manslaughter was applied, people will inevitably wonder, speculate and compare the case to the botched prosecution in the Rebecca Middleton case.

"Is this shades of Rebecca Middleton again?" asked Mr. Barritt in reference to the Canadian who was raped and murdered in Bermuda during the summer of 1996. "Was a decision made before the evidence was in?"

In the Middleton case, a plea of accomplice after the fact to murder was accepted from Jamaican Kirk Mundy - before DNA evidence was processed - in exchange for his testimony against murder accused Bermudian Justis Smith.

Mundy received a five year sentence on the plea but the Attorney General's office attempted to jointly charge him with murder after new evidence came to light.

The AG eventually lost that battle, despite taking it all the way to the Privy Council in London and Mundy is expected to be released this year.

Justis Smith was freed after Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux halted his trial, on the basis of lack of evidence. Later attempts to have him re-tried failed on appeal. To date no one has been found guilty of killing the young holidaymaker.

In contrast, three men - Ryan Rudolph Ball, Keniel Alfred Ingham and Jamal Chicke Robinson - will serve prison sentences for the killing of Mr. Pitcher during a bloody street fight on February 27, 2000.

All three men originally denied murder charges but in early January 2001, Ball changed his plea to guilty of manslaughter. He was later sentenced to ten years in prison.

Charges were then reduced against Ingham and Robinson in February but the two maintained pleas of not guilty and their joint trial began this month.

But Robinson pleaded guilty to manslaughter after that trial fell apart due to travel plans of jurors. Robinson is now awaiting sentencing.

Ingham was found guilty of manslaughter in a second trial and was sentenced to 12 years in prison last Wednesday.

But over the course of Ingham's trial, the public heard for the first time of the extent of the victim's injuries - 19 separate knife wounds - and that it was Ball who frantically stabbed the man while Ingham and Robinson held Mr. Pitcher.

"How is it that three people end up charged and convicted of manslaughter when the evidence seems to suggest the charge should have been higher," said Mr. Barritt yesterday. "People are asking the question."

And Mr. Barritt - who is also a lawyer - suggested that it may be an imperfection of Bermuda's legal system that one can not call on the person who makes the decision on the charge - normally the Director of Public Prosecutions - to explain the decision and the actions which followed.

"The question cries out for an answer," he said. "I'm not suggesting there ought to be an inquiry but there ought to be an explanation so people can understand what happened."

Yesterday, Director of Public Prosecutions Khamisi Tokunbo refused to comment on the case.

But The Royal Gazette understands that the manslaughter plea was originally offered to all three men, but Ball was the only one to accept it. One former prosecutor suggested the DPP's office may have been unsure of its ability to prove Ball, Ingham and Robinson intended to murder Mr. Pitcher, as the death happened during a bloody brawl which left three men in hospital - Ingham, Ball and Mr. Pitcher's brother Shane Fox - and Mr. Pitcher dead.

But sources close to the case said the charge should have been murder.

It has been suggested that Ball's plea to manslaughter was accepted before the DNA evidence came back from Canada.

Ball changed his plea in the January arraignments session of this year - January 1, 2001.

Over the course of Ingham's trial the court heard that while the bloody exhibits from the crime scene were sent to Canada in April 2000, DC Paul Henry did not return to Canada to collect the exhibits until January 16, 2001.