Charged for biting cop


By AZARD ALI Friday, February 1 2008(T&T Newsday)



A POLICEWOMAN on duty at last week Saturday’s Chutney Brass show was allegedly bitten on the neck during a commotion on stage at Guaracara Park in Pointe-a-Pierre. The alleged attack was made on WPC Lydia Persad and yesterday a 38-year-old woman appeared before a San Fernando Magistrate to answer four charges.

The accused, Kamla Ramkissoon of Murchinson Street, Ste Madeleine, San Fernando, appeared before magistrate Alicia Chanka in the Fourth Police Court, to answer four charges. It is alleged that she assaulted WPC Persad during the exercise of her duties.

The second charge read to Ramkissoon alleged that she resisted arrest. The third alleged that she maliciously damaged the policewoman’s eye glasses and that she used obscene language.

The charges, laid by Inspector Thorpe of the Marabella Police Station, arose from an incident on Saturday January 26, in which while fireworks were used during one of the performances patrons flocked on stage. Members of the fire services intervened and with the assistance of police officers, ordered the patrons off the stage.

Ramkissoon pleaded not guilty to all four charges and was represented by Senior Counsel Ernest Koylass. The case was adjourned to May 13.



The scar on WPC Persad's neck.


ATTACKED: WPC Lydia Persad who was attacked and bitten by a woman, leaves San Fernando Magistrates' Court yesterday after the accused appeared in court to answer the charges.

NO

quote:

Originally posted by BONUS:
NO

There were female indo cops stationed at D division West Demarara

Yes there is, there are alot at the Registry at CID headquarters, I also observed a few Corporals around Stabroek Market Area

There are Indo female cops but sexual harrassment from Afro males drive many away from the force.

quote:

Originally posted by BGurd_See:
There are Indo female cops but sexual harrassment from Afro males drive many away from the force.

So yuh saying Trini Afro Cops don't try "thing" with the the FAR better looking Indos Trini female Cops?

Taxi robbery foiled as officer texts for help


-Joel Julien


Saturday, February 2nd 2008(T&T Express)



A THIEF'S well-planned scheme to make quick cash for Carnival had one major hiccup: there was a police officer in the taxi he intended to rob.

Martin Franklyn was charged with possession of a weapon with the intention of doing harm, and appeared before Magistrate Krishendeo Narinesingh in the Port of Spain Third Magistrate's Court yesterday.

The court heard that on Thursday, Constable Victory, who was not dressed in uniform, was seated in the middle of a San Juan taxi's back-seat on his way to work in Port of Spain.

In transit, a man sitting on Victory's left started to threaten the driver and the other passengers.

While the man was preoccupied talking to the driver, Victory was able to send a text message to one of his colleagues using his cellphone. The officer responded and was able to intercept the car when it stopped on the taxi stand on Independence Square.

Franklyn, also known as Martin Leonardo, of Belmont, was found with a pair of scissors in his pants. He is a former security officer with Executive Bodyguard.

Franklyn was denied bail by Narinesingh because of five previous run-ins with the law.

Three months ago, he was charged for obscene language, but missed the court date and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

The matter is adjourned to Thursday, so Franklyn will spend Carnival weekend behind bars.

quote:

Originally posted by BGurd_See:
There are Indo female cops but sexual harrassment from Afro males drive many away from the force.

T&T has had Indo female Cops since 1966.....

'Foreign lawmen should head all police
divisions'


Richard Charan



Saturday, February 2nd 2008(T&T Express)



THE State should hire foreign lawmen to head every police division in the country, and an experienced officer from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency should head the local narcotics interdiction officers.

Furthermore, it would be a waste of taxpayers' money to buy out the sick leave of senior officers in order to keep them on longer.

These were some of the recommendations made by Superintendent Chandrabhan Maharaj, who retired on Thursday after 38 years in the Police Service. He left without a farewell party and without his allegations of corruption in the Southern Division ever being investigated.

He fell out of favour with most senior officers after refusing a promotion last year because of what he described as rampant corruption in the Southern Division and drugs and gun dealing by police officers there.

Last week, he caused another furore when he requested that the property room of the Princes Town Police Station be opened to investigate a report that 33 kilogrammes of cocaine had gone missing.

The request was denied and the division's Senior Superintendent Gopiechand Ganga said Maharaj had no authority to make such a request and that the cocaine was accounted for.

On Thursday, Maharaj told the media that according to a "1999 department order" senior officers did have the authority to make the request.

He said he had sent a letter to Police Commissioner Trevor Paul asking for an independent investigation to be done to find out if the cocaine was in fact there.

He reminded him that three years ago, 32 kilogrammes of cocaine was stolen from the property room of the same police station. The theft was revealed during a High Court trial of a couple who were charged with the 2002 trafficking in 73.5 kilogrammes of cocaine.

A police sergeant testified that when he weighed the drug in 2005, half was gone. The accused were freed and Justice Herbert Volney commented that "human rats" were involved.

Maharaj said that investigation was never completed. He said the officers who were suspended arising out of allegations in the Scott Drug Report in the 1990s had also been reappointed and thought themselves to be above the law.

'Alien invasion'

Illegal migrants flock to T&T-the New York of the Caribbean


Richard Charan South Bureau



Tuesday, February 12th 2008



Immigration officials have their hands full as they battle a wave of illegal migrants, pulled to Trinidad by the promise of jobs.

The five Africans held last week, as they landed on a South Trinidad beach after a 3,000-mile journey from their homeland, are part of the invasion, officials said yesterday. They were said to be just a fraction of the problem.

Illegal aliens are fleeing dead end lives in China, Vietnam, Syria, India and Guyana, and hiding in plain sight in Trinidad, which immigration officers described as the New York of the Caribbean.

Investigators believe there are thousands of such economic refugees, in addition to at least 300 sex workers from Latin America, who have made it to Trinidad the majority by boats landing along the country's south western peninsular and south coast.

The five men held last Saturday, from Senegal and Ghana, are still in the custody of immigration officers, who believe six others came in by boat that night but escaped.

There are only three police investigators based at the Immigration Department-Michael Marshall, Hazel Lucien and Vijay Ramsamooj-assigned to track them down.

The week before Carnival, 13 starving African refugees were reportedly found aboard a barge drifting in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil. The men, described as showing signs of malnutrition and dehydration, were bound for Trinidad and Tobago but their ship went off course.

A few days earlier, Moruga police arrested a Ghanian man shortly after he landed on Trinidad's south coast, having paid a fisherman to bring him from South America. He was charged with coming through an illegal port of entry and sentenced to a week in jail.

After he has served his time, he will remain in prison if he cannot pay his passage home. Three other Ghanians, who investigators said came with him, are being sought.

Police believe middle men are involved, because when arrested the Ghanian had the passports of his friends and certificates of good character to present to employers.

The men said they travelled by boat from Ghana to the Cape Verde Islands, to Brazil and Guyana before making the trip to Trinidad. It took them several months to get here, working in the countries they landed to pay their way on, said immigration officials who interviewed the men.

Many illegal Africans are working as security guards with well known companies, and on construction sites, officers said.

Wasn't Amral's mother a cop?

Yes, since the admission of women into the GPF, women of indian desent have always served. Just like men of indian desent have served though in limited numbers.

Sexual harrassment is wide spread in all of the governmental services in Guyana. This was true of the PNC era and holds true today. This form of harrassment has not been or is not limited to one particular group or race be they victim or harrasor. Just ask those young women who today try to gain employment in the government service.

quote:

Originally posted by Errol Arthur:
Wasn't Amral's mother a cop?

Bai, wah wrang wid yu??

State ready in Pastor case



By AZARD ALI Wednesday, February 13 2008(T&T Newsday)



THE State was ready yesterday to call four witnesses in the $20 million fraud case against Pastor Vishnu Lutchmansingh when the matter came up for hearing in the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court.

Lutchmansingh’s attorneys, however, were not ready to proceed with the preliminary inquiry in which the magistrate will determine the validity of the pastor’s alleged inheritance of a billion dollar estate from a deceased United States businessman.

Prosecuting attorney Rangee Dolsingh SC told deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington yesterday that he would be calling witnesses from abroad who were closely associated with deceased Budford B Keaton. Newsday was informed that the wife of Keaton will come to Trinidad to testify for the prosecution against Lutchmansingh, who is the founder of Faith Sanctuary Family Ministries based in Cunupia.

The pastor re-ppeared yesterday to answer the charges which alleged that he defrauded CEO of Nutrimix, Shaheed Mohammed, of millions of dollars by falsely representing to him that he was the beneficiary of billions of pound sterling by virtue of a will left to him by Keaton, of Olive Hill, Kentucky, US. In consideration for the sums, Lutchmansingh is alleged to have promised to give Mohammed one billion pound sterling.

Informing the magistrate that he was ready to proceed with four witnesses, Dolsingh said that he obtained a fiat to prosecute in respect of 38 charges filed by Sgt Andrew John. State Attorney Timothy Alfonso appeared in respect of 36 charges against the pastor. Attorney Sash Permanand representing Lutchmansingh, said he was not in a position to proceed. The four witnesses were called before the court Judy Lalchan, Zamora Ramdeen, Ronnie Mohammed and Shaffina Ganpat.

Magistrate Wellington fixed April 7, for the first set of witnesses to be called by the prosecution from 10 am.


Pastor Vishnu Lutchmansingh

Tears for fallen cop



Saturday, February 23 2008(T&T Newsday)



MERE MINUTES before he was gunned down in last Sunday’s Bartica massacre, 34-year-old Constable Shane Fredericks called his wife Poonwattie Persaud on the phone.

An inconsolable Persaud revealed this yesterday to Newsday at the Merrimon Funeral Parlour in Georgetown where family members and Fredericks’ colleagues gathered for a public viewing of his body before transfer to their Horstelling home for the funeral service.

“We were talking and his money finished, so he told me he was going to buy a phone card and call me back,” she said.

Instead of a call from her husband, Persaud got a call at about ten o’clock that night, informing her of his death at the hands of 15 gunmen who stormed the Bartica Police Station and killed him and two other colleagues. Nine civilians were later killed.

She said Fredericks was stationed there for the past seven years and used to come home every month for a few days. There main means of communication was via the phone. As the casket was being closed, Persaud screamed out and caressed his face, while other relatives including Fredericks’ brother Dexter, started to cry. Dexter Fredericks told Newsday he felt helpless about the death. “Imagine my brother was a police officer whose job was to protect Guyana citizens and this is what they did to him.”

Persaud added that they had been married for 15 years and had a 12-year-old son. She was not sure of her future now as Fredericks was the sole breadwinner in the family.

“He gone and left me in a rented house. I don’t know if I will get the NIS benefits and all,” she whimpered. “I never expected something like this to happen. My son not going to have his father.”


FAMILY IN GRIEF: Poonawattie Persaud, screams as she looks down on the body of her husband, policeman Shane Fredericks, during a public viewing yesterday in Georgetown, Guyana. Fredericks was among the 12 who were shot dead in last Sunday's Bartica massacre.
Author: LINCOLN HOLDER

Bartica massacre 3 held


By Denise Balgobin In Guyana Saturday, February 23 2008(T&T Newsday)



THREE men were yesterday detained in Bartica, Guyana by members of that country’s Joint Services (police and army) in connection with Sunday’s massacre in which 12 persons including three policemen were shot dead in the mining town situated in Guyana’s Region 7.

According to Regional Chairman Holbert Knights, the arrests were possible due to an intense search exercise. The men were transported by plane belonging to the Guyana Defence Force to Georgetown, via the Ogle Aerodrome in East Coast, Demerara.

A team of police officers and army personnel later transferred the trio to the CID Headquarters for questioning.

Yesterday’s arrests followed the detaining on Thursday of 19-year-old James Anthony Hyles in connection with the Lusignan massacre in which 11 persons were murdered on January 26.

Hyles, a mini-bus conductor of Lot 70 Friendship appeared the same day of his arrest in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court before Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson-Ogle. He was remanded to prison until February 28.

The case was also transferred to Vigilance Court at East Coast Demerara. At Hyles’ court hearing, his family who gathered outside and inside the court compound, cried out at the “injustice”.

The charges were that at Track A, Lusignan, Hyles murdered Clarence Thomas, 48; Vanessa Thomas, 12; Ron Thomas, 11; Mohandai Gourdat, 32; Seegopaul Harilall, ten; Seegobind Harilall, four; Dhanrajie Ramsingh, 52; Seecharran Rooplall, 56; Raywattie Ramsingh, 11; Shazam Mohamed, 22, and Shalem Baksh, 52 on January 26. During the court hearing, a handcuffed Hyles broke down in tears.



CHARGED: A weeping James Anthony Hyles, 19, in the Georgetown Magistrates' Court yesterday.
Author: KAITEUR NEWS

Why is he crying? Probably missing his buddies.

quote:

Originally posted by Alexander:
Why is he crying? Probably missing his buddies.

He probably now feels abandoned. It's strange with the feeling of gang comradry can make people do. Now without that, he cannot cope with no comrades and brother in arms to lean on. He will now see how weak he really is standing alone. I saw a documentary with a 14 yr old soldier in Africa and what he did to be part of the gang of older guys. He was more brutal, caught 4 kids ages 5 -14 , tied the up and cremated the alive, all while dancing and celebrating his bravery.

If he is guilty of any part, only god will have mercy on his wicked soul.

Guyana gunmen strike...again



By DENISE BALGOBIN in Guyana Tuesday, February 26 2008



A Guyanese official last night said there were reports that gunmen attacked another mining camp, 130 miles from Bartica, where 12 persons were murdered on February 17.

Holbert Knights, chairman of Region 7 where Bartica is located, could not give details on the attack nor say if there were any deaths.

The report comes as Guyana observed a day of mourning yesterday for the victims of the bartica massacre.

Earlier yesterday, Knights had said a surveillance helicopter offered by the Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Government to assist in the search for the gunmen who shot dead 12 persons in Bartica had not arrived in Guyana up to yesterday.

“I believe if the authorities were serious about finding these killers, that helicopter would have arrived without all this paperwork they are talking about,” said Holbert Knights, chairman of Region 7 where Bartica is located.

The TT Government had also promised arms to the Guyana government. National Security Minister Martin Joseph said yesterday he was not in a position to comment on the matter.

“The arrangements that the Guyanese government and my government made included keeping confidential why we are sending, what we are sending and when we are sending between ourselves,” he said.

In Georgetown, national and official flags were flown at half-mast for the day, even at the United States Embassy, as the country observed a day of mourning for those killed on February 17.

An interfaith memorial service was held at the Bartica Stelling Square from 3 pm.

This was the scene of six out of the 12 bloody murders, when 15 masked gunmen attacked the gold-mining community.

“I think these men are long gone, because there hasn’t been any reports of them getting supplies and I’m doubtful if they could still have foodstuff a whole week later,” said Knights. Schools in Bartica reopened for the first time yesterday after being closed last week. Sources there reported that people were making an effort to continue their lives. However, there was still a sense of fear among the people.

“The nightclubs and restaurants were slow over the weekend, and were closed earlier than usual, even up to today,” a source said. As far as efforts in finding the perpetrators, he said there has been a Guyana Defence Force skyvan making overhead passes at different intervals during the day.

Parika resident, Larry McCurdy, 22, said the government should have asked people to “wear something black. But it seems to be business as usual in Georgetown.”


In memory of: Guyana's national flag is flown at half-mast over the Parliament Building in the capital Georgetown yesterday as a mark of respect for the 12 persons killed by a gang of gunmen in Bartica on February 17. Guyana national Larry Mc Curdy speaks about the day of mourning in Georgetown yesterday.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Eric's_Revenge,

Saturday 1st March, 2008 ( Trinidad Guardian )



Colombian faces extradition to US



BY INDARJIT SEURAJ


Permanent secretary in the office of the Attorney General Cheryl Blackman was one of two witnesses testifying in the extradition hearing against Colombian national Jorge Herman Ospina Zuluaga.

The State is seeking to have Zuluaga, 46, extradited to the United States to answer money laundering charges.

The extradition hearing began yesterday with head of the Central Authority in the Attorney General’s office David West leading evidence from the witnesses.

Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls is presiding over the hearing in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Court.

Also testifying yesterday was Cpl Robert Mark of the Counter Drug and Crime Task Force.

When the matter resumes on Tuesday, interpreter Pedro Centeno Elie is expected to translate in Spanish, to the accused, the contents of documents received from the US.

Submissions are expected to follow, after which Mc Nicolls would make a ruling on the hearing.

Sophia Chote appears for the accused.

On the charge, Zuluaga allegedly sent funds to a company which were received by an undercover DEA agent. An estimated US$9.4 million money believed to be from drug proceeds is alleged to have been laundered.

More than US$3.9 million was also allegedly laundered in California.

He was arrested at the Piarco International Airport by officers of the Organised Crime and Narcotics and Firearms Unit and Immigration Unit who acted on intelligence they had received.

Zuluaga was attempting to board an Aeropostal flight to Venezuela and then destined for Colombia.


©2005-2006 Trinidad Publishing Company Limited

Rape accused crashes, dies



By CECILY ASSON Monday, March 3 2008 (T&T Newsday)



HOURS AFTER being charged with the alleged rape of a 12 year old student and placed on $30,000 bail, a retired school principal died when his white Nissan Primera station wagon slammed into the Godineau Bridge, Mosquito Creek, Oropouche yesterday.

Harold Nathai, 61, of Soogrim Street, Gulf View, La Romaine, was the only occupant in the car and died instantly.

Eyewitness Phillip Prince, of Fyzabad, told the police he was driving behind Nathai when he saw him overtake a truck before crashing into the steel bridge.

Investigators, however, are treating his death as suicide.

According to reports, Nathai, who retired as a principal of Grant Memorial Presbyterian School in December 2006, was arrested and charged on Saturday night by WPC O’Connor of the San Fernando Police Station following rape allegations. He was placed on $30,000 bail.

Relatives said the father of three and grandfather of two had celebrated his 61st birthday on New Year’s Day.

His daughter Marcia Nathai-Balkissoon said her father had complained to her mother Lovinia Lalla-Nathai about feeling unwell before leaving home at about 6.30 am yesterday. She said he told her mother he was on his way to visit a friend in Rousillac.

Nathai-Balkissoon, an engineer, said: “God alone knows what happen. He told mom he wasn’t feeling well and she begged him to turn back if that was the case, but dad is a man to his word and didn’t want to keep his friend waiting and so proceeded on his journey.”

Nathai’s body was viewed by District Medical Officer Dr Tia Okwee and ordered removed to the Forensic Science Centre, St James. The body however lay covered for more than three hours on the ground awaiting the arrival of the undertaker.

Nathai-Balkissoon said her father spent more than three decades in the teaching profession and had touched the lives of many.

“He made a difference in the lives of many of his students and teachers, his passing definitely leaves a void.”

Investigations are continuing.


Harold Nathai