An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

One man was killed while three oth­ers were tak­en in­to cus­tody be­tween Sat­ur­day night and mid­day yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the suc­cess­ful res­cue of kid­napped Caribbean Air­lines pi­lot Daniel Kawall.

Mean­while, the search con­tin­ued overnight for two oth­er sus­pects who al­leged­ly fled in­to the bush­es as of­fi­cers stormed a ho­tel/apart­ment build­ing at Third Street, Mar­aval, around 11 am and res­cued Kawall, who was found by po­lice with his hands and feet bound.

Kawall, 59, of Palm Road, North Val­sayn, was last seen and heard from on Sep­tem­ber 3.

While a US$1 mil­lion ran­som was re­port­ed­ly de­mand­ed by the kid­nap­pers on Fri­day, of­fi­cials yes­ter­day re­fused to say if all or part of it was paid.

Salut­ing his of­fi­cers as he stood steps away from the com­pound where Kawall was be­ing held since he had gone miss­ing, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the suc­cess­ful res­cue was the re­sult of a mul­ti-agency tac­ti­cal op­er­a­tion by var­i­ous arms of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

He cred­it­ed the pre­ci­sion-led and co­or­di­nat­ed ef­forts of the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Unit (AKU); the In­ter-Agency Task Force (IATF); the Spe­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit (SIU); the Port-of-Spain Task Force (POSTF); the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (WDTF); and the Air Sup­port Unit (ASU).

Con­firm­ing Kawall was tak­en for med­ical at­ten­tion af­ter be­ing res­cued, Gue­var­ro as­sured, “He is safe.”

Guardian Me­dia was told Kawall was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal un­der heavy po­lice guard and was wear­ing a mask as he was at­tend­ed to by med­ical per­son­nel at the Ac­ci­dent and Emer­gency De­part­ment.

Sources con­firmed Kawall’s vi­tals were good but his hands were bad­ly bruised. Oth­er­wise, of­fi­cers said he seemed “fine.”

One of Kawall’s ab­duc­tors was wound­ed dur­ing an al­leged con­fronta­tion with of­fi­cers and lat­er died at hos­pi­tal.

Al­though Gue­var­ro de­clined to iden­ti­fy the de­ceased at the scene, he was lat­er iden­ti­fied as Rahiem Fe­lix, who cel­e­brat­ed his 33rd birth­day on Sep­tem­ber 4.

Point­ing to the un­for­tu­nate end for the dead man, the Com­mis­sion­er said, “I hope this would serve as a warn­ing to oth­er per­sons who wish to en­gage in that sort of il­le­gal­i­ty.”

He urged, “The time has come to change. The tide is now. Please turn away from crime and look to­wards prof­itable, le­gal means of mak­ing a liv­ing. This end is not for you.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the two sus­pects held on Sat­ur­day night were de­tained af­ter they used Kawall’s bank card to with­draw cash from an ATM in Mar­aval.

While the CoP re­fused to com­ment on this yes­ter­day, he stressed, “This morn­ing’s op­er­a­tion ex­em­pli­fies the TTPS’ re­solve and op­er­a­tional pre­ci­sion in con­fronting vi­o­lent crime. I com­mend the brav­ery of our of­fi­cers and reaf­firm our com­mit­ment to the safe­ty of every cit­i­zen and the pur­suit of jus­tice.”

To the crim­i­nal el­e­ments, he strong­ly ad­vised, “Let this serve as a clear warn­ing that law en­force­ment will not tol­er­ate the re­turn of kid­nap­pings for ran­som as what ex­ist­ed in the past.

“I al­so will ex­tend that warn­ing to all those who choose a life of crime, as such a lifestyle will sure­ly lead you along a path where you will en­counter my of­fi­cers. The TTPS will meet you with the req­ui­site force, re­solve, and the full weight of the law. Turn away now, while you still have that choice.”

Gue­var­ro re­mained on site for sev­er­al hours yes­ter­day as he, along with Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP), In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Suzette Mar­tin, co­or­di­nat­ed aer­i­al and ground search­es for the re­main­ing sus­pects.

Se­nior of­fi­cers who al­so played a crit­i­cal role in the res­cue ef­fort in­clud­ed Sr Su­pet Win­ston Ma­haraj; Su­pet An­der­son Pa­ri­man; and Asst Supt Salin­dra Singh.

Asked to re­spond to claims by res­i­dents of Holo­lo, Cas­cade, that po­lice had failed to re­spond to their ini­tial re­ports that Kawall’s gold Toy­ota Hilux had been seen in the area hours af­ter he was re­port­ed miss­ing last week—and of­fi­cers failed to re­spond—Gue­var­ro said, “There is a lot of mis­in­for­ma­tion be­ing bandied about by so­cial me­dia, and by per­sons who utilise so­cial me­dia as a me­dia house.”

How­ev­er, this re­sponse from Gue­var­ro an­gered res­i­dents of the St Ann’s Cas­cade Holo­lo Crime and Emer­gency Alert What­sApp group, who fired back at the CoP over his dis­missal of their con­cerns. They in­sist­ed that Kawall could have been res­cued ear­li­er if of­fi­cers had re­spond­ed to their ini­tial calls.

One per­son wrote, “We know it is not mis­in­for­ma­tion, and as a com­mu­ni­ty, we de­serve bet­ter.”