Januari 26, 2010
Skeldon woman chopped, stabbed to death
Relative held
Dead: Nalini Bhoge
The body of a 43-year-old mother of three was discovered at her home at Line Path, Skeldon, Corentyne, Berbice around 10 am yesterday with chop and stab wounds and a close relative is in police custody assisting with investigations.
Nalini ‘Nalo’ Bhoge who was reportedly at home alone at the time of the murder was found lying in a pool of blood with chops to the back of her head and neck and at the sides of her neck as well as four stab wounds in her upper back.
Police found a bloodstained cutlass and an ice pick, suspected to be the murder weapons, at the scene. A police press release said the woman’s body was found at her home with several chop and stab wounds.
The woman’s husband, Budhnarine ‘Minko’ Bhoge, 51, told Stabroek News that he had left home to drop his two youngest daughters, Khishana, 10 and Pravena, 8, to school. He said he then went to the bank and then to a gas station at Corriverton before returning home.
He said he met two of his colleagues at the gas station and they chatted and then he gave one of them a lift to the store and dropped the other one home. He related that he went into the house through the front veranda door, which was open and although he did not see his wife he did not call out to her as he felt she was doing her usual chores.
A neighbour comforts the couple’s younger daughters.
A few minutes later, he said, he called for her but got no response and decided to search the house. It was then that he made the gruesome discovery.
He said when he saw his wife’s remains on the floor in his eldest daughter’s bedroom he was “devastated.”
He said he immediately alerted a man who was passing as well as relatives, neighbours and the police and within minutes many persons rushed to the scene.
Bhoge, a cane farmer and a member of the Private Cane Farmers’ Association, who operates an office below his home, said his wife was active in his business.
When Stabroek News arrived at the scene, a large crowd of relatives, friends and curious onlookers had gathered while vehicles lined both sides of the road.
The grieving Tillakdhari (seated, left) next to her granddaughter Bharti and other relatives.
The police were also there conducting investigations as undertakers from Persaud’s Funeral Home removed the body amid loud wailing from Nalini Bhoge’s 69-year-old mother Vedawattie Tillakdhari.
Tillakdhari said her son-in-law Bhoge had called her around 10 am and asked for her son, ‘Vicky.’ She enquired what was wrong and he said that they must “come right now; something serious happen.”
She said she thought her daughter was sick and did not expect to see her dead, especially not in that manner. In tears the woman lamented that someone had murdered her daughter cold-bloodedly.
Nalini’s brother, Ravindranauth ‘Vicky’ Bisnauth, 39, told this newspaper they hurried to the house and his brother-in-law told them that someone had killed “Nalo”. He said when he saw her blood-covered body he was shocked.
According to the dead woman’s eldest daughter, Bharti, she left home around 8.30 am to walk to the Line Path Secondary School a short distance away, while her father had left earlier to drop her two younger sisters at the primary school.
She said some of her friends told her they saw a lot of vehicles in front of her home and they heard someone had “cut up my mother”. She said she borrowed her teacher’s phone and called home and was told to go home immediately. She said she went to the head teacher’s office to ask for permission to go home and found relatives already there waiting for her.
Meanwhile, Tillakdhari recalled that three weeks ago her daughter and her family had gone to a fair in the area and when they returned home their entire house was ransacked and a large sum of money was stolen. A quantity of jewellery remained intact, but a pouch belonging to Bhoge that contained cash, “bank card and security card” was missing. (Stabroek News)
Mother of three murdered at Corriverton
A mother of three was found murdered in her bedroom at Corriverton, Berbice, yesterday by her husband. Dead is Nalini Bhoge, called “Nalo”, 46, of 19 Line Path.
The woman’s bloodied body was found in her bedroom with her throat slashed. Her husband and mother are in police custody assisting with investigations, reports said. Residents said that the relationship between Bhoge and her husband was a ‘stormy one’ and up to Saturday night they were heard arguing loudly.
They said that the man was under the influence and apparently they had another misunderstanding. The husband claimed that he went out yesterday morning and upon his return was reading the newspapers and smelled ‘something’ burning; and when he called out to his wife and he got no response, he went in search of her.
His wife had been preparing a meal, he said. Then he found her bloodied body in the bedroom. He also gave conflicting reports about taking one of his daughters to school and then going to work at a sawmill. Reports indicate that there was no sign of a robbery as nothing seemed to be missing from the home.
The three children were questioned by policemen at the Springlands Station. Police said a blood-stained cutlass and ice-pick were found near the body. A man has been arrested and is in custody assisting with investigations. (Michel Outridge/Guyana Cronicle)
January 20, 2010
Slashed throat man identified
Relatives baffled
Llewelyn Fitzgerald Campbell
Relatives yesterday identified the bloodied body that was found on the Kingston seashore behind the Guyana Forestry Commission a day earlier as Llewelyn Fitzgerald Campbell called Elton of Lamaha Street, Kitty.
As the police seek clues to the man’s murder they have received reports that the 45-year-old Campbell had friends living in the vicinity where he was found. The man’s relatives though remained baffled over why or who committed the gruesome murder.
Up to press time last evening, no suspect had been identified. The man who stumbled upon the body had told the media that he was walking along the seawall around 8 am when he spotted it and he informed a friend.
He said the man was “crimped up” on his side and there was a metal object resembling a knife (but smaller) sticking out from a hole in his neck. The man said the dead man’s face and hands had numerous cuts and the blood was still fresh.
Campbell’s sister who lives in Linden told this newspaper that he left the mining town in December last year saying that he was going to Cayenne (French Guiana) where someone had gotten him a job. Yesterday she learnt he never left the country but was living somewhere in Kitty.
She said that it was a cousin who called inquiring about him that prompted her to buy a copy of the Kaieteur News yesterday which had carried a photograph of the man’s body. She said that it was a ring that was on the hand of the man in the picture that instantly confirmed that it was her brother.
Campbell she said got that ring from his brother 11 years ago and has never taken it off. The young woman recalled that after her brother, who is the eldest of six children, left Linden where he is originally from she had been unable to reach him on his cellular phone. She could not understand what would have prompted his brutal death.
It was several residents who lived close to the city who turned up at the Lyken’s Funeral Home to make a positive identification after seeing a photograph of the corpse in the newspaper. One relative Joylyn De Florimonte told Stabroek News that when she saw the body at the parlour a gaping wound to the throat was evident.
She last saw Campbell two Sundays ago when he attended a cousin’s birthday celebration. According to her on that occasion, Campbell was joyful and didn’t give them any indication that he had troubles. De Florimonte later said that he was a trader who would buy clothes in Suriname and sell them here. However during the Christmas holiday season he helped friends pluck chickens in Bourda Market. She said that he was making plans to go back to Suriname shortly.
“This thing baffling a lot. He was slaughtered as through he was a pig… It is so suspicious because it happen so sudden and then the circumstances”, the grieving woman told this newspaper. Like Campbell’s sister and other relatives, she could not come up with a possible motive for the man’s murder and did not know of any problems he had with anyone. Campbell also leaves to mourn his mother Lennell Fraser who resides in Trinidad.
This murder bears some similarities to that of actor Joel Fraser who was found in a pool of blood on the Liliendaal seawall wearing a t-shirt and his underpants. His throat was slit, his face was bashed in and the attacker had used a knife to inflict other injuries. Though several persons were questioned, police were unable to make a breakthrough. It is unclear if the police are investigating a possible linkage between the two. (Stabroek News)
January 15, 2010
President Jagdeo to visit Kuwait, UAE and Iran
Set to become first Guyanese head of state, .....
..... and the first CARICOM leader to visit Iran
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait - Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo, left Guyana yesterday for an official visit to the Middle East that will take him to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Guyanese president is expected to arrive in Kuwait, the first leg of his tour, on Sunday, January 17, where he will have an audience with the Emir of Kuwait, Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah and Prime Minister, Nasser Al Mohammad Al Ahmad Al Sabah.
The Emir of Kuwait will hold a dinner banquet at Al Bayan Palace in honour of President Jagdeo and his delegation. This will be the second visit to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates by a Guyanese Head of State, the last in 1996 by President Cheddi Jagan.
After Kuwait, the president will travel to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and then to Islamic Republic of Iran, becoming the first Guyanese head of state, and the first CARICOM leader to visit Iran.
President Jagdeo is traveling with a delegation that includes Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett; Presidential Envoy to the Middle East, George Hallaq; Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali; General Secretary of the PPP, Donald Ramotar and President of the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG), Al Haj Fazeel Ferouz.
This is Jagdeo’s third visit to the Middle East, having visited Cyprus, Libya, Jordan and Syria in 2009 in an effort to seek foreign investments for Guyana. His planned visit to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait was called off in March 2009 because of the death of former Guyanese President Janet Jagan almost a year ago.
President Jagdeo disclosed his intention to visit Iran in a meeting with the Iranian Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador in August 2009.
The Iranian News Agency (IRNA) reported Jagdeo as saying, “Soon, we will get familiar with the capabilities and capacities of the Islamic Republic of Iran during a visit to the country.” The Guyanese President’s upcoming visit to Tehran will definitely draw reaction at home and abroad and especially from the United States and Israel.
United States, the European Union and Israel are calling for tighter sanctions against Tehran hoping to isolate the country for its nuclear ambitions.
Iran continues to attract high level visits from heads of states from South and Central America and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been welcome in US backyard, in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Brazil. (Ray Chickrie/Guyana Cronicle/(Caribbean Net News)
January 14, 2010
Canal woman killed, dumped at Nismes
Husband suspected, flees after taking poison
Sunita and Ramesh Muniram on their wedding day
The body of a 24-year-old woman was yesterday found in the channel of the Nismes, West Bank Demerara koker, allegedly murdered at the hands of her `controlling’ husband who later ingested poison and fled.
Dead is Sunita August, a resident of Vauxhall, Canal Number One Polder and a mother of three, the eldest being eight. Up to press time last evening, police were on the lookout for her husband, Ramesh Muniram, who fled into thick bushes behind Unity Street, La Grange, WBD.
August’s body was found around 6 last evening and was later taken to the West Demerara Regional Hospital Mortuary, where it awaits a post-mortem examination.
A relative who went to identify the body last night said that there were countless marks of violence on the body and from all appearances, August was badly beaten. The relative said the woman’s hands appeared to be broken and there was blood oozing from her mouth. This newspaper was told that when the body was found, only the upper part was clothed.
Police in a release issued just before 8 pm said that they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the woman’s death. From the reports reaching Stabroek News, the woman left her home yesterday morning to meet Muniram, from whom she had separated after a dispute, to collect money for two of her children who he had fathered.
Persons living close to the dam that leads to the koker at Nimes recalled seeing August being reluctantly led to that area by the suspect some time on Tuesday. Yesterday morning though, Muniram was seen towing his wife on a bicycle, heading in the direction of the koker. He was seen leaving the area alone some time later.
Muniram returned to La Grange where he told a friend and his mother what he had done. The police were informed and went to the Nismes sea dam where they found August’s clothing – underwear, pants, her slippers and a bed sheet near the koker. Her body was not there, but there was evidence on the ground that suggested that someone had been dragged towards the koker, a police source told this newspaper.
Police went beyond that spot, combing the sea dam for the woman’s body but came up empty-handed. While this search was being conducted, other policemen, some armed, were combing the bushes behind Unity Street, La Grange where Muniram had fled. Police told Stabroek News that the man was spotted around 1 pm but fled and they did not fire at him because at that stage it was unclear whether he had indeed committed a crime.
The police combed the bushy terrain for several more hours but were unable to find Muniram. When Stabroek News spoke with August’s relatives yesterday afternoon they were clinging to the hope that she was still alive and that Muniram had been joking. Hours later, when the body was found, they were distraught.
According to a cousin, Rita Davis, Muniram had repeatedly threatened to kill August, her children and an aunt. On several occasions police had to intervene in the disputes, she said. The woman described the husband as a bully and recalled that she had often had to intervene in their rows as well.
She said she had advised August to be careful in light of the repeated threats he made to her life. Davis said she last spoke to August on Sunday and recalled that the woman called her cell phone on numerous occasions on Tuesday afternoon. She expressed regret yesterday that she missed those calls.
Relatives said that some time after nine yesterday morning, they received reports that Muniram had killed his wife and then drunk poison. They described him as a controlling man who always wanted things his way. Stabroek News was told that some time last year, he pulled a knife on August.
‘No police can’t ketch me’
At her Lot 52 Unity Street, Back Half, La Grange home, Muniram’s mother, Khemwattie called Jean was in tears when approached by this newspaper. She recalled that some time after 9 am her son went to her home in a haste calling out for water; he had a green substance smeared all over his face.
She said she gave him the water and then some drink. She said she then smelled gramoxone on him and realized that he had ingested it. The distraught woman said it was then her son admitted what he had done and she immediately left for his grandmother’s house nearby.
When she returned, Muniram who was sitting on a bench outside the house pelted his phone down and said that his problem was over. “No police can’t ketch me. When dem ketch me, ah dead”, he said before he fled into the thick bushes behind the house. Khemwattie between sobs said that her son worked hard to get money to support his wife and children.
She recalled that since they got married in 2004, they had had domestic problems. The woman said that in 2008 her son went to Barbados and worked. When he returned home he discovered that his wife had used all the money. She said that after their house was repaired, August “dash he out de house”. (Zoisa Fraser/Stabroek News)
January 9, 2010
Waitress shot dead, three injured
….. as gunmen attack Safraz’s Bar
Kulmattie Singh
A waitress was shot dead last night as gunmen went on a five-minute rampage at Safraz’s Bar and Restaurant, injuring three other persons.
Kulmattie Singh, 35, of Lot 224 Second Field, North East Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara sustained a gunshot wound to the head. She was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) at about 9.30pm; 15 minutes after the brazen attack.
The bar is located at Lamaha and David streets, Kitty and is one of the city’s popular nighttime hang out spots. At about 9.15 pm three gunmen stormed the bar, surprising patrons and launching a brutal attack. Patrons were stripped of their valuables and the bar owner relieved of an undisclosed quantity of cash.
Jason Montgomery, an Australian national, was the first to be shot. Singh, who was out in the open taking orders at the time, was the second to be hit; she was shot to the head and reports say she died instantly.
Another patron, who was yet to be identified up to late last night, was also shot while a third person, beaten to the head by one of the attackers, was rushed to a private city hospital. Stabroek News could not confirm the condition of the three injured persons at press time.
Johnny Ramdass, a 47-year-old businessman, said he was sitting at his table when the three men stormed into the bar. One of the gunmen, he said, went to the counter where a scuffle ensued between him and Montgomery.
Safraz’s bar last night
“I can’t tell you exactly what happen up front there,” a shaken Ramdass said last night, “but all I see is that the two of them been scuffling and all I hear is a gunshot.” One of the three attackers, Ramdass recalled, approached his table, pointed the gun right at him and demanded that he hand over all his valuables.
“I just put up my hand and tell him take everything I got…that gun been right in my face…he went away with my jewellery, cellular phone and money,” Ramdass said. Ramdass later revealed that a call was made to his cellular phone and the attackers answered.
“We call my phone,” Ramdass related to police officer on scene, “and they [the attackers] answer and I could hear them arguing in the background.” The man said he was aware of two gunshots being fired and didn’t manage to notice much else in the confusion that ensued.
“I am conscious that I heard two gunshots but I can’t tell you how many more they fire after that because is like I went into shock or something,” Ramdass said.
When Stabroek News arrived at Safraz’s Bar and Restaurant at about 9.30 last night a small group of persons had gathered outside and there was heavy police presence. The bar’s owner, when approached, refused to comment. Armed police officers stood at the bar’s David Street entrance but the ranks needed to process the crime scene were yet to arrive. Spent shells could be seen on the ground.
Meanwhile, Singh’s relatives had just learnt of her demise when this newspaper visited her Cummings Lodge home shortly after 10.30 pm. The woman, a single mother of four, had been working at the bar for about five months. Her oldest child is 18 while the youngest is just over a year. Singh’s mother was inconsolable and told Stabroek News she just couldn’t believe her daughter is dead.
Other relatives who were summoned to GPH by police said that they were not able to see Singh’s body. However, they said she has been identified by a colleague. The shooting at Safraz’s bar was the second to hit Lamaha Street last night. Just over an hour before the bar shooting two men attacked and robbed Michelle Pile of jewellery and other valuables as she stood talking to a friend on Lamaha Street.
Pile, 37, of South Sophia was rushed to GPH after sustaining a gunshot wound to the left thigh. Police sources have since told this newspaper that there is nothing to suggest that the two incidents are related. (Sara Bharrat/Stabroek News)
January 6, 2010
Millions stolen from police HQ
Three cops arrested
Three police ranks are now in custody after $3.4 million was discovered missing from a locked canister in the Finance Office at the Police Headquarters at Eve Leary yesterday morning.
The canister was secured in a locked cashier cage. Police said the three ranks arrested were responsible for the monies and keys.
Police in a release issued last evening said that “investigations are being conducted into the larceny of $3.4 million from the Police Finance Office, Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, which was discovered at about 0900h today (yesterday)”. According to the release, “there were no signs of any breakage to the Office”. They said three ranks have been arrested and they were in custody assisting with the investigations.
Police spokesman Ivelaw Whittaker told Stabroek News last evening that the missing money had been enveloped and placed in a locked canister in the Finance Office. The money, he said, was discovered missing when a check was made yesterday morning. Subsequently, three ranks were taken into custody to assist with investigations.
Asked if any charges would be laid against any of the ranks shortly, Whittaker said he was not in a position to say since investigations are still ongoing. Meanwhile, this newspaper learnt from a reliable police source last night that a senior police officer, in addition to the three junior ranks, was also hauled in for questioning.
Cash held at the Finance Office comes mainly from bail collected at the various Police Stations, the source said. The money on hand is used, among other things, to pay travel and meal allowances for senior officers.
Sometime during last November, according to the source, an instruction, reinforcing an earlier order, was received that more than $25,000 worth of bail money could not be kept at a Police Station at any given time. “I cannot tell you whether this instruction was sent to all the police station(s),” the source said, “but I can tell you that all the stations in Georgetown and central Georgetown received one.”
This instruction would’ve increased the amount of cash normally on hand at the Finance Office, the source said. The Finance Office larceny, the source explained, “is most definitely not the first time the Guyana Police Force has suffered loss as a result of the wicked work of its own ranks”.
About five years ago, the source said, a Sergeant from a Police ‘C’ Division Police Station had made off with over $2M. While the matter was never made public an all station bulletin, according to the source, was sent out. The Sergeant subsequently turned in himself along with a lawyer and an arrangement was made for the money to be repaid. “The particular Sergeant is still in the employ of the force,” the source stated.
It was as a result of this incident that the initial instruction limiting the amount of cash which could be kept at any given station was disseminated.
Further, the source opined that the $3.4M “job” had to be “done on the inside” since the Finance Office is one of the most secure areas in the Eve Leary compound. The Finance Office is located on the northern side of the compound (Rabbit Walk) and is a stone’s throw from Commissioner Henry Greene’s office.
Several efforts made to contact senior police officials for a comment last night were futile. This incident is the latest in a series of crimes that have ensnared the police force. (Stabroek News)
January 01, 2010
Linden taxi driver stabbed to death
Body found on Mabura Road, but was attacked at home
Edward Winfield
On the day he should have been reflecting on his life after being married for three years, the badly mangled body of a 25-year-old Linden taxi driver was discovered along the Mabura Road in Region Ten.
Edward Winfield of 279 Blueberry Hill, Wismar, Linden was found dead along the road leading to the interior. His body which bore several chop and stab wounds was discovered by one of his brothers early yesterday morning.
According to the man’s mother, she received a call from someone who said that her son’s car was seen parked on the Four Miles Mabura Road. She said she became worried since she had not seen her son for two days. “He does always come by cause he don’t live far from me and is two days now nobody ain’t see he,” she related.
Window panes were removed by the assailant/s
His brother and a few other persons immediately went the area where the car was reportedly seen.
The car was found intact but Edward was nowhere in sight. A search of the area led to the discovery of the mangled body across the road from where the car was parked.
The brother returned immediately to Linden and filed a report at the Mackenzie Police Station and ranks were dispatched to the location.
Further investigations into the gruesome discovery revealed that Winfield was attacked and possibly killed in his bottom-flat apartment and then taken to where his body was found.
At his house it appeared that the assailant/s had entered his bedroom by removing several louvre panes and climbing in. The door to the man’s apartment was neatly padlocked and the police were forced to break in. Winfield’s bed was soaked with what appeared to be blood which also stained the window curtains and walls.
The occupants of the upper flat of the house said that they had not seen Winfield for the past two days. The said they did not hear any funny sounds or cries either over the past days or nights. “Eddie is a man does gat nuff friends driving in and out all the time at all hours so it was hard to tell that something had gone wrong at any given time,” one neighbour said.
The blood-stained bed
His mother said she had last seen her son on Boxing Night when they had attended a family function together. “Like my son know he was going to die,” she said.
“I never see me son perform da kinda perform. He really dance da night and then he bring we home and he left and said he was going home and sleep and that was the last I heard or see my son.”
Winfield was one of the persons held by the Linden police in relation to the recent $7.6 million robbery at the Wismar Post Office. He was arrested and held for six days because it was believed that his car was used in the robbery.
On November 30 last year, two bandits armed with guns had robbed the Wismar Post office of the cash which was supposed to be used to pay old age pensions.
According to a police press release, at around 2.40 pm on that day, Postmistress Ramona Singh and seven other employees were attacked and robbed by the two masked men armed with handguns. The police said Singh and the employees were in the building when the robbers entered and held them at gunpoint.
They were placed to lie on the floor and the assailants demanded the keys to the vault which were handed over. The men then opened the vault and took out $7,693,225, which was intended to pay pensioners, and escaped.
Winfield was the last of five children for his mother and though he was not living with his wife and two children aged 3+ and 2 years old, he had been married for three years. Yesterday he would have celebrated his third wedding anniversary.
His sister was scheduled to be married yesterday also but due to unforeseen circumstances her wedding was postponed. According to neighbours, “it was a sign, only dat we only now see it.” (Cathy Richards/Stabroek News)
