JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Thir­ty-sev­en days af­ter he went miss­ing, Ch­agua­nas club own­er Im­raz Ali’s de­com­pos­ing body was found down a precipice, wrapped in plas­tic, off the North Coast Road yes­ter­day.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around mid­day, act­ing on in­for­ma­tion, they went to the lo­ca­tion, about a minute’s dri­ve away from the Pil­lars.

Po­lice be­lieve he was killed not too long af­ter he went miss­ing on Sep­tem­ber 4, and be­cause he was wrapped in plas­tic and the cool tem­per­a­ture, his body was pre­served enough to make a pos­i­tive iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. The killers al­so used duct tape to keep the plas­tic wrap­ping in place.

Po­lice said Ali, 60, of Ajod­ha Road, Cunu­pia, was last seen leav­ing a me­chan­ic shop in Freeport, dri­ving a black Nis­san X-Trail. It is be­lieved he was car­ry­ing a large sum of mon­ey at the time to con­duct a busi­ness deal.

Three days ago, a $100,000 re­ward was of­fered for in­for­ma­tion that could help lo­cate Ali. The re­ward was post­ed by Crime Stop­pers.

Po­lice said three peo­ple are cur­rent­ly in cus­tody as­sist­ing with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to his dis­ap­pear­ance and now death.

Com­ment­ing on Ali’s killing, pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Bal­dath Ma­haraj, said the cham­ber was shocked and deeply sad­dened by Ali’s death.

“Mr Ali was a mem­ber of our wider cen­tral Trinidad busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, and this crim­i­nal act is a sig­nif­i­cant blow to the sense of se­cu­ri­ty that busi­ness own­ers face. His dis­ap­pear­ance, and now this dis­cov­ery, high­light the se­vere crime scourge plagu­ing our na­tion,” Ma­haraj said.

He thanked mem­bers of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad, the Homi­cide Bu­reau, ACP Richard Smith, and all law en­force­ment bod­ies that led to Ali’s body be­ing found.

“We ac­knowl­edge the re­cent ap­point­ment of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and un­der­stand that rel­e­vant changes and shifts in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice take time. The cus­tody of three sus­pects in this case, with an al­leged con­fes­sion, is en­cour­ag­ing and is con­sid­ered to be a ma­jor break­through in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, the cham­ber can­not over­state the cli­mate of fear that such vi­o­lent crimes bring.

“We urge the new com­mis­sion­er and the en­tire po­lice ser­vice to en­sure a swift and thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion, lead­ing to the full pros­e­cu­tion of all those re­spon­si­ble. Jus­tice for Mr Ali is im­por­tant to re­store con­fi­dence in the al­ready low de­tec­tion rates and, busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment,” he said

6 killed in 24 hours

Ali’s re­cov­ery came as po­lice re­port­ed six mur­ders be­tween Fri­day night and yes­ter­day morn­ing. This in­clud­ed two men mur­dered in Va­len­cia.

The de­ceased in Bull’s Bar Va­len­cia Old Road killings have been iden­ti­fied as Dereck Saun­ders, 26, and Shane Fulchan, 41. Saun­ders, a fa­ther of three chil­dren aged five, three, and two, ran a lo­cal car wash. Dur­ing the same in­ci­dent, bar­tender Ri­an­na Wong was shot in the ab­domen, and Bran­don Wong in the chest. Bran­don re­mains in crit­i­cal con­di­tion at hos­pi­tal, while Ri­an­na is re­port­ed to be sta­ble.

Saun­ders’ fa­ther wept un­con­trol­lably dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, re­call­ing that his son had joined the fam­i­ly in cel­e­brat­ing his wed­ding an­niver­sary on Fri­day, and the fam­i­ly had planned a par­ty for his fa­ther’s 46th birth­day yes­ter­day.

“What was sup­posed to be a joy­ful cel­e­bra­tion has now turned in­to mourn­ing and prepa­ra­tions for my son’s wake and fu­ner­al,” he said.

De­fend­ing his son’s name, Saun­ders’ fa­ther said, “To say my son is in a gang—there is no gang here. The on­ly gang is fam­i­ly. My fam­i­ly is very big. Peo­ple talk about Re­sis­tance Six, Nine, but I raised my chil­dren with dis­ci­pline. We could talk to them, yes, but when we are not there, we don’t know what they are do­ing. Per­son­al­ly, there is no gang thing with that young man. Peo­ple may say it is gang-re­lat­ed, but they will know for sure who killed my child.”

Saun­ders’ younger broth­er, David, said he was at the bar short­ly be­fore the shoot­ing. He was lat­er in­formed by their step­moth­er that Saun­ders had been shot. He said when he got to the scene, he was shocked and “be­lieved I was dream­ing, but it was re­al­i­ty”.

Re­ports in­di­cate that when the three gun­men en­tered the bar, the own­er, a li­cenced firearm hold­er, re­turned fire. The at­tack­ers fled in­to near­by bush­es.

Mean­while, a Mor­vant man iden­ti­fied as Mar­cus John­son was found dead around mid­day at his Ve­gas, Cale­do­nia home. His body was rid­dled with bul­lets.

The oth­er peo­ple killed in sep­a­rate in­ci­dents in­clud­ed a pen­sion­er and two men.

In Ari­ma, Stephen Lewis, al­so known as “Patch­es” or “Pow­er”, was found ly­ing in the Ocean­ic Su­per­mar­ket park­ing lot around 10.30 pm with a deep in­ci­sion to his neck. Po­lice said he ran rough­ly 150 me­tres from his home af­ter an al­ter­ca­tion in­volv­ing an uniden­ti­fied man and woman, be­fore col­laps­ing. A cut­lass with blood stains and swabs was re­cov­ered at the scene.

About 30 min­utes be­fore Lewis was killed, a 32-year-old fa­ther of three was gunned down near his home.

Po­lice re­port­ed that Ale­do Roberts was sit­ting along Red Gran­ite Street when a white ve­hi­cle with two masked men stopped, one man got out and shot Roberts be­fore the two es­caped. Roberts was found in­side his home with gun­shot wounds to the chest, back, and but­tocks. He was tak­en to the Ari­ma Health Fa­cil­i­ty, where he was pro­nounced dead at 10.27 pm.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty, res­i­dents said the killing left them con­fused and afraid.

Those who spoke did so off cam­era, say­ing nor­mal­ly the area would have been buzzing with ac­tiv­i­ties; how­ev­er, the killing forced every­one to re­main in­doors.

One of his neigh­bours, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said the dai­ly-paid work­er at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty was not known to be in­volved in any wrong­do­ing.

“He used to play foot­ball now and then, when he feels like. He might play a lit­tle card game, now and then, but oth­er than that, I can’t re­al­ly say any­thing bad about the fel­la.”

He added that af­ter the shoot­ing, the com­mu­ni­ty has been on edge. He said more po­lice pa­trols with a com­mu­ni­ty fo­cused style of polic­ing was need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty.

The oth­er killings took place at Mal­oney Gar­dens. Po­lice re­port­ed that Kurleigh Singh, 42, of Train Line, Pin­to Road, Ari­ma, was found ly­ing mo­tion­less along a path­way lead­ing to the Build­ing 8 car park around 9 pm af­ter he was shot in the chest, hand, and ab­domen.

A woman who was walk­ing with him at the time was shot in the left leg. —Re­port­ing by Ralph Ban­warie