Witness tells of gun, cutlass to his head

The husband of Senior Magistrate Lucina Cardinas-Ragoonanan yesterday recounted how he was awakened by his wife’s screams to find a man sitting on his chest with a cutlass to his neck. Harry Ragoonanan, a building contractor, gave this evidence when the trial against two men accused of robbing the family at their Palmiste home in 2006 began in the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court. The accused Steven Mohammed and Mohammed Ghany yesterday pleaded not guilty when they appeared before Second Court magistrate Siumongal Ramsaran.

Ragoonanan, in his evidence, said the men who robbed them escaped with more than $290,000 worth of cash and items. He recalled that around 8.30 pm on February 6, 2006, he locked all the doors and secured his home at Block Five where he lives with his wife, son, daughter, mother and mother-in-law. He said he went to sleep after midnight. His wife and baby daughter were in the same room with him. “I was awakened around 2.50 am by my wife screaming,” Ragoonanan said. “I found a man sitting on my chest with a cutlass to my neck...Another one had a gun on my left temple.

He said there were two other men on the  side of the bed with cutlasses. He said they all wore bandannas on their faces. He said the gunman kept asking him for the firearm. “I told him I did not have a firearm...He then asked if I had a safe and to hand over all the valuables,” the witness said. Ragoonanan said the man wanted to know if anyone else was in the house and he told them. “Two guys went to the rooms and I heard loud screams,” he recalled. Subsequent to that, he said, his son and mother were brought into the room. He said his mother-in-law who could hardly walk was left on a chair in the hall.

The men, Ragoonanan said, then emptied the safe. He said they took their personal jewelry and ransacked the entire house. After 40 minutes, the men left with a quantity of cash, jewelry, cellphones, items, US currency, pounds sterling and Barbados currency, and $40,000 worth of alcohol. In cross-examination by attorney Andre Rajkumar, Ragoonanan said apart from details of the men’s built and height, he could not identify them. Sometime later, he said, he went to the police station where police officer Lester McIntosh showed him several pieces of his jewelry. The matter was adjourned to March 6.