KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

A 16-year-old Cou­va school­boy, who fa­tal­ly stabbed a man al­leged­ly as­sault­ing his moth­er, was re­leased from po­lice cus­tody yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing in­struc­tions from the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

The teenag­er had been in cus­tody since Fri­day, af­ter the killing of 36-year-old Mara­bel­la labour­er Ak­il Sylvester dur­ing an in­ci­dent at the fam­i­ly’s Isaac Set­tle­ment, Cou­va apart­ment.

Ini­tial po­lice re­ports sug­gest­ed that the act was in de­fence of his moth­er, who was re­port­ed­ly un­der vi­o­lent at­tack by Sylvester.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion III in­ter­viewed the boy at the Oropouche Book­ing Cen­tre yes­ter­day. His at­tor­ney, Krysan Ram­bert, was present for the in­ter­ro­ga­tion process.

The of­fi­cers then ap­proached DPP Roger Gas­pard for guid­ance, and he sub­se­quent­ly in­struct­ed them to re­lease the teen pend­ing a coro­ner’s in­quest.

The teen was re­leased around 3.30 pm, po­lice con­firmed.

Po­lice said the 35-year-old moth­er of three was re­turn­ing home from down­town Cou­va on Fri­day around 2 pm when Sylvester, her part­ner, en­tered her ve­hi­cle af­ter she parked in front of the build­ing. An ar­gu­ment broke out while they were still in the ve­hi­cle.

The woman ran in­to her apart­ment, but Sylvester fol­lowed and al­leged­ly picked up a cut­lass and be­gan chok­ing and beat­ing her.

Hear­ing the com­mo­tion up­on re­turn­ing home, the teen in­ter­vened and re­port­ed­ly stabbed Sylvester mul­ti­ple times. Sylvester col­lapsed in the liv­ing room and died at the scene.

The moth­er, her son, and the woman’s niece lat­er went to the Cou­va Po­lice Sta­tion to re­port the in­ci­dent. Re­spond­ing of­fi­cers found Sylvester ly­ing face-down with stab wounds to his head and back. A dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer ex­am­ined the body and or­dered its re­moval to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre, St James, for au­top­sy card­ed for to­day.

Po­lice re­cov­ered both a cut­lass and a knife be­lieved to have been used in the con­fronta­tion.

The in­ci­dent sparked wide­spread pub­lic sym­pa­thy, with res­i­dents and so­cial me­dia users call­ing for the teen’s re­lease and coun­selling for the fam­i­ly.

“He risked his life to pro­tect his moth­er. I hope jus­tice pre­vails,” one neigh­bour said.

Res­i­dents de­scribed the boy as qui­et, re­spect­ful and well-man­nered. Some claimed there were pri­or al­ter­ca­tions be­tween the woman and Sylvester, not­ing that she would of­ten flee to her car and lock her­self in­side to es­cape his rage.

On the day of the fa­tal in­ci­dent, neigh­bours said they heard a loud bang—pos­si­bly the door be­ing kicked in—fol­lowed by the woman’s screams.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the home on Sat­ur­day and ob­served a bro­ken door han­dle. No one was home at the time.

In the wake of the tragedy, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice con­firmed that coun­selling ser­vices are be­ing made avail­able to the fam­i­ly through the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit.