An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Moo­ni­ah Rami­ah’s prayers were an­swered af­ter al­most 30 years when it was an­nounced on Fri­day that her three sons would be re­turn­ing home af­ter be­ing freed of mur­der by the High Court.

Look­ing out im­pa­tient­ly as she tend­ed to her laun­dry at her home at Ar­buck­le Street, Fred­er­ick Set­tle­ment, Ca­roni, just af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day, “Ma­ma”, as she is fond­ly known in the qui­et vil­lage, cried tears of joy in­ter­mit­tent­ly as she ea­ger­ly await­ed their ar­rival.

Damien “Tom­my” Rami­ah, Bob­by Rami­ah, and Seenath “Farmer” Rami­ah were among eight men freed of the mur­der of Thakoor Boodram, the broth­er of de­ceased drug king­pin Nankissoon “Dole Chadee” Boodram.

Thakoor, a pig farmer, was kid­napped from his home in south Trinidad on De­cem­ber 20, 1997. A ran­som was lat­er de­mand­ed by his ab­duc­tors, but ten days lat­er his head was found in a whiskey box at the Ca­roni Cre­ma­tion Site.

Along with the Rami­ah boys—Michael “Rat” Ma­haraj, Samuel Ma­haraj, Daniel Gopaul, Richard Hug­gins and Mark Jaik­er­an were al­so re­leased from the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Gold­en Grove, Pi­ar­co, on Fri­day night.

Dry­ing tears from the cor­ners of her eyes, Moo­ni­ah said she was “hap­py”.

Apol­o­gis­ing for cry­ing, she said, “The joy have me cry­ing. I so hap­py. I used to al­ways ask the Lord that be­fore my eyes close, I must see my chil­dren in front me. I am so hap­py it hap­pen. The Lord give me that.”

Even though she had not seen the trio up to 1 pm yes­ter­day, Moo­ni­ah said she re­ceived a call from the girl­friend of one of the men that they had been picked up and were good.

Moo­ni­ah Rami­ah said, “The idea is that they reach out ... the gate open for them and they out­side and I hap­py.”

Asked what spe­cial prepa­ra­tions had been made ahead of re­ceiv­ing them, Moo­ni­ah said, “I prepar­ing for when they will come, just to sit down and lime and talk with them, noth­ing ex­cit­ing.”

Re­veal­ing she had been anx­ious since hear­ing the news, she said she al­ways held on to the be­lief that their re­lease would come un­ex­pect­ed­ly—and it did.

“I tell one of my good friends, this week, next week, but the day will reach that none of us will know and it will be an ex­cit­ing thing, and it re­al­ly is,” she smiled.

Stat­ing that all she want­ed was for her sons to be hap­py, she said, “I just want them to be­have or what­ev­er, in what­ev­er way ... be nice to peo­ple, good to peo­ple, talk to peo­ple, have their life go­ing good and hap­py un­til. That is my wish for them.”

Moo­ni­ah said all moth­ers would know the grief and pain and long­ing she has lived with all these years.

Even as she cel­e­brat­ed the re­lease of her three boys, she mourned the loss of an­oth­er son, Joey Rami­ah whom she miss­es. “Up to now, he gone and I does still be cry­ing.”

Joey, along with Dole Chadee and sev­en oth­ers, were hanged in June 1999.

Re­gard­ed as one of the most feared men in the 1990s af­ter earn­ing a rep­u­ta­tion as a bru­tal hit­man, Joey was sen­tenced to death for the mur­ders of An­tho­ny “Tooks” Greenidge and Stephen “Bulls” Sandy, whose mu­ti­lat­ed bod­ies were dug up from a shal­low grave in Ca­roni in 1992.

The sur­prise judg­ment re­gard­ing the eight was the cul­mi­na­tion of years of lit­i­ga­tion that end­ed in them be­ing re-sen­tenced by High Court Judge Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son on Fri­day.

A ninth man, Leslie Hug­gins, was al­so re-sen­tenced along­side the group but did not earn his im­me­di­ate re­lease, as he is still serv­ing a sep­a­rate life sen­tence for the 1996 mur­der of his cousin, Clint Hug­gins, whose tes­ti­mo­ny, af­ter his death, led to the con­vic­tion of Chadee and mem­bers of his gang for mur­der­ing four mem­bers of a Pi­paro fam­i­ly and their even­tu­al ex­e­cu­tions.

A tenth man, Ju­nior Phillip, who is al­so serv­ing a life sen­tence for mur­der­ing Hug­gins af­ter he left wit­ness pro­tec­tion to vis­it rel­a­tives and cel­e­brate Car­ni­val, was ac­cused of mur­der­ing Thack­oor Boodram in De­cem­ber 1997 and was sen­tenced to death by Jus­tice Stan­ley John in 2001.

Hug­gins will earn his re­lease af­ter he is re-sen­tenced for his cousin’s mur­der, while Phillip still has to be re-sen­tenced for both.

In 2011, the State’s main wit­ness in the tri­al, Ju­nior Gran­di­son, ad­mit­ted he fab­ri­cat­ed ev­i­dence against the men.