On May 24, 1985, my on­ly son, Lar­ry Ga­jad­har, was bru­tal­ly mur­dered. He and a fe­male pas­sen­ger in his car were hi­jacked by two men. They both (vic­tims) en­dured the worse pun­ish­ment and suf­fer­ing at the hands of those two men (beasts).

The young woman whose name I will not re­veal was un­con­scious but alive and lived to iden­ti­fy the two as­sailants. She does not live in Trinidad for she is fear­ful for her life. When­ev­er I meet and greet her, her en­tire body be­gins to shiv­er and trem­ble. Yes, my son was beat­en with a piece of wood about his body and es­pe­cial­ly his head. He was dropped-kicked and he and the young woman were placed in the trunk of his own car of which the beasts took pos­ses­sion. hey were dri­ven around for about five hours and then tak­en to Las Ba­jos, San­ta Flo­ra, where the two men in­flict­ed fur­ther pun­ish­ment on them and then slit their throats.

The young woman pre­tend­ed to be dead but wit­nessed all that the men con­tin­ued to do to my son. She be­came un­con­scious and woke up about 4 am to find her­self naked and her body clot­ted in blood from her neck down. She and my son were thrown in a dump, the mur­der­ers think­ing they would not be dis­cov­ered and that cor­beaux would eat them. The young woman cov­ered her­self with a garbage bag and start­ed walk­ing, not know­ing where she was go­ing. She was picked up by a pass­ing truck and tak­en to the San­ta Flo­ra Po­lice Sta­tion. Lat­er on the mur­der­ers were caught, tried and sen­tenced to hang, but be­cause of the Pratt and Mor­gan case they were sen­tenced to life. I have left out many de­tails in this let­ter due to space. I am writ­ing from Cana­da where I am va­ca­tion­ing with my two daugh­ters and fam­i­ly. Be­fore?I left for Cana­da at the end of June, I saw on the TV?news where Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney, with a big smile on his face, spoke about par­don­ing 50 pris­on­ers for the 50th an­niver­sary of in­de­pen­dence. I was dumb­struck. In Ju­ly I got a call from two pro­ba­tion of­fi­cers in?south?Trinidad who asked me my opin­ion on the re­lease of one of the mur­ders.

I told them blunt­ly I was against that and gave the fol­low­ing rea­sons:

You have re­opened a fes­ter­ing wound in our hearts.

There were threats from mem­bers of their fam­i­lies.

From their con­vic­tion to date I have lost three cars.

My house was bro­ken in­to twice.

Rub­bish/garbage was thrown all over my yard.

My two daugh­ters were ab­duct­ed and one al­most died.

They had to flee from this coun­try-no pro­tec­tion.

We nev­er re­ceived any coun­selling or saw a psy­chol­o­gist.

To­day I say yes, free him/ them, but first free me/us from:

The hurt, pain, an­guish, sick­ness, med­ical bills, rest­less­ness, sleep­less­ness nights, wor­ries, night­mares etc.

Free my wife from a dan­ger­ous fall sus­tained be­cause of wor­ries and gid­di­ness, hit­ting her left ear on the edge of a con­crete step and caus­ing per­ma­nent lost of hear­ing.

Free my el­der daugh­ter who took on the killing of her broth­er so se­ri­ous­ly that she could not com­plete her sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion.

Free us from all the bills I had to pay un­nec­es­sar­i­ly.

Free us from all trips abroad as sug­gest­ed by doc­tors.

Free us/me from the vi­sion I still see of the naked dead body of my son in a dump heap.

Free me from the 14 stab wounds I saw on my son's body.

Free me from see­ing the cuts on the palms of his hands where he tried to shield him­self.

Free me from the vi­sion and the gap­ing hole I saw in his throat.

Yes, if or when the Pres­i­dent, the Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Vol­ney, (Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter) Prakash?Ra­mad­har, the en­tire ju­di­cial sys­tem, (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter) Jack?Warn­er etc can free me/us from the above, then I say free them.

For the past 27 years, the pub­lic and my­self have been sup­port­ing them in prison with food, cloth­ing, med­i­cine, doc­tor's vis­its, wa­ter etc, so I have been pay­ing tax­es to sup­port the ones who killed my child. To­day I de­mand my pound of flesh. Free them but com­pen­sate me and the oth­er vic­tim with a min­i­mum of $2 mil­lion each. You can­not free them and leave us the vic­tims to con­tin­ue to suf­fer. I am sure that many of the fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims will agree with me.

Saul Ga­jad­har

Palmyra