In­dar­jit Seu­raj

Just days af­ter a war­rant was ex­e­cut­ed for her ar­rest in the Unit­ed States for the death of her for­mer com­mon-law hus­band, Doreen Alexan­der was tak­en be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate on an ex­tra­di­tion war­rant. She is want­ed in the US for con­spir­ing with oth­ers to en­gage in hostage-tak­ing re­sult­ing in the death of a US cit­i­zen, in this case, US war vet­er­an Bal­ram "Ba­lo" Ma­haraj. She is al­so want­ed to an­swer charges of con­spir­ing with oth­ers to take hostage, her teenage son Di­nesh Ma­haraj and Ma­haraj (Bal­ram), as well as aid­ing and abet­ting hostage-tak­ing.

Alexan­der, 45, stood be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar yes­ter­day, fac­ing ex­tra­di­tion on the three-count in­dict­ment for of­fences re­sult­ing from Ma­haraj's death. Ma­haraj, 62, who resided with rel­a­tives at Chandy Lane, El So­cor­ro Road, San Juan, was kid­napped on April 6, 2005, from the Samaan Tree Bar, Aranguez. A $3 mil­lion ran­som was de­mand­ed for his safe re­lease, but Ma­haraj died while in cap­tiv­i­ty and no ran­som was paid. His re­mains were found stuffed and buried in two con­tain­ers in the Gran Cu­ra­caye, San­ta Cruz, for­est on Jan­u­ary 8, 2006.

At the Port-of-Spain Eighth Court yes­ter­day, Alexan­der, who last ap­peared in that very court­room when she was com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for Ma­haraj's mur­der, re­mained com­posed as the charges were read to her.

She told the mag­is­trate she had re­tained at­tor­ney Bindra Dols­ingh to rep­re­sent her and would leave any com­ments in an­swer to the charges, to her lawyer. The re­quest­ing US state was rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Lal­la and Suni­ta Har­rikissoon, le­gal ex­ec­u­tive in the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty in the of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Lal­la ob­ject­ed to bail, deem­ing the ac­cused as one who would be un­like­ly to re­turn to court if she was grant­ed bail.

Equal­ly im­por­tant, he said, were the na­tion's treaty oblig­a­tions in in­ter­na­tion­al law and en­sur­ing to the re­quest­ing state that the fugi­tive was present in court. Af­ter be­ing re­fused bail, Alexan­der was or­dered back in court on Feb­ru­ary 1. Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI) agents, on Jan­u­ary 18, 2011, ex­e­cut­ed a war­rant for the ar­rest of Alexan­der. Alexan­der was in­car­cer­at­ed at the Gold­en Grove Women's Prison, Gold­en Grove Road, Arou­ca, when the FBI agents vis­it­ed her. At the start of No­vem­ber 2010, FBI agents met with Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, in re­la­tion to the Alexan­der's ex­tra­di­tion to the US.

At that time, FBI field agents al­so vis­it­ed Alexan­der at the women's prison, re­port­ed­ly ask­ing her to will­ing­ly ac­cede to go­ing to the US for tri­al in Wash­ing­ton, DC. The pend­ing charges in the US were laid pur­suant to the Unit­ed States Code Ti­tle 18, Sec­tion 3238. Cpl Syd­ney Job of the lo­cal In­ter­pol unit brought the ac­cused be­fore the court.

The case so far

For­mer sol­dier Cor­po­ral Ri­car­do De Four, Zion Clarke, Kevon De­merieux, Wayne Pierre, An­der­son Strak­er, Christo­pher Sealey and Kevin Nixon have al­ready been con­vict­ed in the US for Ma­haraj's death. A ju­ry sit­ting in E Bar­nett Fed­er­al Cour­t­house in Wash­ing­ton DC, be­fore Judge John Bates, on Ju­ly 31, 2009, con­vict­ed the sev­en T&T na­tion­als for tak­ing Ma­haraj hostage, which re­sult­ed in his death.