Sascha Wil­son

Solid­er Ish­mael Salaam has been re­ar­rest­ed and charged in con­nec­tion with the Pen­ny­wise Plaza rob­bery in La Ro­main on Sep­tem­ber 19 which left two se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers dead and one hos­pi­talised.

He was ar­rest­ed around 4.30 pm on Fri­day at the army base in La Ro­main based on in­struc­tions from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to a TTPS re­lease, Salaam is among four men who were charged with mur­der by homi­cide de­tec­tives aris­ing out of var­i­ous in­ci­dents.

It is al­leged that the sol­dier's car was part of the rob­bery that left two Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers dead and an­oth­er in­jured. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the 24-year-old sol­dier had re­port­ed to the po­lice that his car was stolen at gun­point by six as­sailants with high-pow­ered ri­fles some­time be­fore the rob­bery. But, the po­lice did not be­lieve his sto­ry. He was in­stead ar­rest­ed but re­leased on Sep­tem­ber 24 af­ter his at­tor­ney filed a habeas cor­pus writ. The coun­try was rocked by the in­ci­dent which was cap­tured on video and went vi­ral. Six as­sailants had opened fire with high-pow­ered firearms on an Al­lied Se­cu­ri­ty van with three se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers as they were leav­ing Pen­ny­wise Plaza af­ter col­lect­ing cash.

Two of the of­fi­cers, Jef­frey Pe­ters and Jer­ry Stu­art, were fa­tal­ly shot, while their col­league Pe­o­la Bap­tiste was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured. An­oth­er se­cu­ri­ty guard Al­lis­ter Har­ris, who works with a dif­fer­ent firm and was on du­ty at the Pen­ny­wise com­pound, was al­so in­jured dur­ing the at­tack.

Some­time lat­er, four of the sus­pects, iden­ti­fied as Kyle Ramd­han, Key­on Ramd­han, Greg Dodough and Deaun­dre Mon­trose, were sub­se­quent­ly shot dead by the po­lice af­ter they ran in­to a res­i­dent's prop­er­ty in La Ro­main in an at­tempt to elude of­fi­cers in hot pur­suit.

In the re­lease, Ag Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob com­mend­ed "the painstak­ing and metic­u­lous work" of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Ja­cob said, "Over the last year a lot of em­pha­sis has been placed on train­ing and de­vel­op­ment of our Homi­cide De­tec­tives. In Oc­to­ber of­fi­cers par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long Ad­vanced Homi­cide In­ves­ti­ga­tions Train­ing Pro­gramme, through a part­ner­ship with the US Em­bassy.”

Ja­cob added that apart from en­hanc­ing the skills and ex­per­tise of de­tec­tives, the TTPS is al­so util­is­ing bal­lis­tic and foren­sic tech­nolo­gies to as­sist in solv­ing these cas­es of homi­cide.

"While tech­nol­o­gy is im­por­tant, the hu­man el­e­ment of in­ves­ti­ga­tions is cru­cial, so I re­it­er­ate the call to the pub­lic to say some­thing when they see some­thing,” the com­mis­sion­er said.

Salaam, of Fyz­abad, was charged with two counts of mur­der, one count of rob­bery with vi­o­lence and two counts of wound­ing with in­tent to cause griev­ous bod­i­ly harm.

Mean­while, Dustin Di­az, 30, of Cunu­pia was charged with mur­der, pos­ses­sion of a firearm with in­tent and pos­ses­sion of am­mu­ni­tion with in­tent.

His charges stemmed from the mur­der of Ed­win ‘Con­queror’ Joseph, on June 7 in Pe­tit Val­ley.

Joel Fer­min, 39, and his step­son Shaquille Row­ley, 22, both of Ro­main Lands, Mon Re­pos, were charged with the mur­der of 47-year-old, Noel Fer­min. Of­fi­cers had re­spond­ed to a re­port of a shoot­ing at Up­per Hill­side Road, Mon Re­pos Road, Mor­vant on Oc­to­ber 29 and found him bleed­ing from gun­shot wounds. He was tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries. They are ex­pect­ed to face a mag­is­trate on Mon­day.