Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

A 44-year-old labour­er who was gunned down at his aunt’s home in Gas­par­il­lo yes­ter­day morn­ing had been charged 17 times for var­i­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing firearm-re­lat­ed crimes, po­lice have con­firmed.

Ren­ni­co Khan, who was em­ployed at the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion, was asleep when a gun­man stood over him and opened fire, killing him on his bed.

Khan’s cousin, 36-year-old welder Akeem Alexan­der, who wit­nessed the har­row­ing or­deal, was left trau­ma­tised.

Khan moved in with Alexan­der and his moth­er at their Bar­ron Ave, Lums­den Road, home about a year ago af­ter Khan’s moth­er died. He was orig­i­nal­ly from Corinth Hills in Ste Madeleine. The house is un­se­cured, as it is still un­der con­struc­tion fol­low­ing a fire a few years ago.

Short­ly af­ter 3 am, Khan and Alexan­der’s moth­er were asleep when the masked in­trud­er en­tered their home.

Re­count­ing the har­row­ing or­deal, Alexan­der said he was ly­ing on his bed when he got an eerie feel­ing that he was be­ing watched.

“I just glimpse around so, and I see like some­body watch­ing,” he said.

Alexan­der said he be­came fright­ened, and the in­trud­er went in­to his moth­er’s room.

“The per­son just went in the next room, my mom room and tell she, ‘Be qui­et, Don’t make a scene’,” he said, adding, “(he) come back and then go over me and shoot­ing he (Khan)...”

Alexan­der said as the as­sailant fired at his cousin, he kept mov­ing back­wards un­til he was out the door and es­caped in a wait­ing ve­hi­cle.

Khan, who was shot mul­ti­ple times in the head and shoul­der area, died at the scene. Po­lice re­cov­ered 12 spent 9 mm shells on the floor.

Alexan­der be­lieves the in­trud­er was look­ing at him be­cause he was try­ing to iden­ti­fy whether he was Khan. “He (Khan) died in his sleep...It was very trau­ma­tis­ing. I just clean­ing up the blood and hop­ing for the best.”

He said Khan was shot a few years ago, but as far as he knew, he had re­ceived no re­cent threats.

Com­ment­ing on the crime sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try, he said it would on­ly im­prove when peo­ple de­cide to change.

“We as peo­ple need to buck up on our­selves and stop it. We need to do it as an in­di­vid­ual,” he said.

Po­lice con­firmed that Khan was charged 17 times be­tween 2014 and 2022 for var­i­ous of­fences, in­clud­ing shoot­ing with in­tent, rob­bery, and firearm and am­mu­ni­tion-re­lat­ed charges. In­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Homi­cide Bu­reau Re­gion 3 were last evening still try­ing to nar­row down a mo­tive.