Orange Walk’s Abimael Pott Takes Plea for Killing During Fight

Abimael Pott

He was originally charged, and subsequently convicted, of the murder of a teenager during a fight at a school in Orange Walk Town. However, he was ordered to stand trial again, and today twenty-four-year-old Abimael Pott admitted to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Seven years ago this past May fourth, the younger brothers of the accused Pott and the victim, nineteen-year-old Shamir Gonzalez, got into a fight on the compound of Louisiana Government School with another young man. First Gonzalez and then Pott intervened, and Pott hit Gonzalez with a pipe to the back of his neck. Gonzalez died on the spot. Justice Herbert Lord and a jury convicted Pott of murder in 2014 and he was sentenced to life in prison. A witness gave testimony that he saw Pott placing the pipe he later used on Gonzalez in the area. However, attorney Senior Counsel Hubert Elrington appealed to the Court of Appeal on several grounds, including that the judge did not apply the test for self-defense. Pott was a minor at the time of the offense. He will be sentenced by Justice Colin Williams on June twenty-seventh.