Jensen La Vende

Reg­i­ment sources close to mur­dered Lance Cor­po­ral Rawle Fletch­er yes­ter­day said he was failed by the or­gan­i­sa­tion which he had worked tire­less­ly for over the past nine years of his life.The sources claimed that Fletch­er, who was gunned down on Sun­day, had re­port­ed to his su­pe­ri­ors that his life had been threat­ened and he be­lieved it was con­nect­ed to a case in which he had as­sist­ed au­thor­i­ties in re­mov­ing il­le­gal weapons off the street. His home had al­so been shot at fol­low­ing the threats.

How­ev­er, the sources said Fletch­er was on­ly af­ford­ed min­i­mal pro­tec­tion af­ter voic­ing con­cerns for his safe­ty.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Civ­il Mil­i­tary Af­fairs Of­fi­cer of the De­fence Force, Ma­jor Al Alexan­der, con­firmed Fletch­er's home was shot at and that his life was threat­ened. He added that the re­ports were months old and not as re­cent as the mil­i­tary source sug­gest­ed.Alexan­der said Fletch­er re­port­ed the in­ci­dents to them in Au­gust, adding he be­lieved the re­ports and his killing were not re­lat­ed.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, a rel­a­tive of Fletch­er con­firmed Fletch­er had com­plained of his life be­ing threat­ened. The rel­a­tive could not say when that hap­pened.Fletch­er, 34, Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre (NESC) stu­dent Anil Di­ram, 19, and busi­ness­man Mi­tra Ma­haraj, 46, were all shot dead ear­ly Sun­day morn­ing near In­shan Ali Park, Po­lo Grounds, Preysal, Cou­va.

Fletch­er was at­tend­ing an all fours sin­gle ta­ble card com­pe­ti­tion when around 3.25 am a ve­hi­cle stopped and a man opened fire from in­side the ve­hi­cle. Short­ly af­ter, an­oth­er man came out the ve­hi­cle and con­tin­ued shoot­ing at Fletch­er.Fletch­er was on sick leave from the Reg­i­ment af­ter in­jur­ing one of his hands while play­ing foot­ball.In a re­lease on Sun­day, Alexan­der said Fletch­er was sta­tioned at the War­rant Of­fi­cers and Se­nior Rates Mess at the De­fence Force Head­quar­ters, Ch­aguara­mas.

In an­oth­er re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said Fletch­er would be buried on Fri­day un­der full mil­i­tary rites fol­low­ing a church cer­e­mo­ny at the Isa­iah Tem­ple Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Church, Po­lo Grounds, Preysal, Cou­va.The coun­try's mur­der toll now stands at 398.