Ogle Aerodrome shooting suspects turn selves in

Jul 29, 2008 News

– released on station bail

Four men, whom police said were wanted in connection with a brazen daytime attack on a vehicle leaving the ogle Aerodrome, have turned themselves in to police custody, and were questioned and sent away on station bail.
This newspaper understands that the men turned themselves in to police custody on the East Coast of Demerara, and have since been released on station bail.

A source close to the investigations told this newspaper that, despite wanted bulletins having been issued for the men, there is not sufficient evidence to link them to the crime.

On July 15 last, two persons were wounded when gunmen opened fire on a jeepload of passengers leaving the Ogle Aerodrome, in what police say was an attempted robbery.

Michael Bryan Jackson, 32, the driver of the vehicle, was shot in the buttocks and was admitted a patient at the GPHC, while Vanessa Mendonca, a cleaner at the Ogle Aerodrome, sustained injuries to her knees, caused by glass fragments.

The attack was aborted when the vehicle Jackson was driving managed to elude the gunmen and head to the Sparendaam Police Station.

Jackson, who is employed with an interior charter service, had gone to the Ogle Aerodrome to collect cargo and other items, and was on his way out from the aerodrome in motor jeep GJJ 7277.

Upon approaching the Access Road, Jackson observed a motor car parked across the road, and a man standing outside with a firearm while two other men were inside the vehicle.

Suspecting an attempt at robbery, Jackson accelerated the vehicle, and the man with the firearm opened fire on the vehicle which was heading towards the main road.

The attackers gave chase in their motor car, discharging rounds at the vehicle driven by Jackson in the process.

Jackson managed to drive the vehicle to the Sparendaam Police Station before losing consciousness. Apart from Jackson and Mendonca no other person in that vehicle was injured.

The vehicle sustained a number of bullet holes, and the rear windscreen was shattered. Police say they recovered a 7.62 x 39 spent shell and a warhead at the scene.

Meanwhile, police say there is no new development in the case involving the abduction and subsequent beheading of city businessman Farouk Kalamadeen. Kalamadeen was abducted on April 2 while on his usual morning walking exercise.

According to one eyewitness to the kidnapping, he was accosted by three armed men on Mandela Avenue, who forced him into a dark-blue Toyota AT192, which bore cardboard number plates.

Kalamadeen, who also manages a gold mining operation in the interior, was without his mobile phone and licensed firearm.

After he did not turn up to open the North Road offices of Jiffy Lubes, family members launched a search for him around the Houston, Mandela Avenue and Meadow Bank areas, but failed to find him.

A suspect was arrested after being identified as one of the abductors, but that suspect was later released.
A 28-day search which was launched for him ended at about 06:00 hours on April 30 last, when his headless body was found on a parapet on Cowan Street, Kingston.

Police said that the body was positively identified by Kalamadeen’s son, who, along with other relatives, had rushed to the scene.

Police believe that the businessman was murdered the night before his body was discovered.
Detectives who visited the scene scoured a nearby trench for several minutes, but failed to locate the slain man’s head.

Then, about a week later, his decomposing head was found in a canal on North Road, a few metres from his business place.

There is also no new development in the case involving the shooting of 22-year-old Arjune Narine, who was killed when gunmen opened fire on him in the presence of two unarmed police ranks at Durey Lane, Campbellville, in May this year.

Several other persons, including NCN Librarian Jean Singh and her son, were also injured during that incident.

According to an eyewitness, the gunmen’s car appeared to be following Narine’s vehicle along Durey Lane when they first opened fire.

The eyewitness said that, apparently, Narine, upon seeing the flashing lights of the police on Middleton Street, decided to turn towards the cops for help.

However, the eyewitness said, the gunmen did not back off. Instead, one of the gunmen got out of their car an opened fire with what appeared to be a machine gun.

“The police had to take evasive action and de man (gunman) just jump back in he car and drive away,” he said.

Investigators are exploring the theory that the attack may be linked to a previous similar attack one week earlier, in which a Campbellville butcher, Imran Khan, was shot at by men in a dark coloured car while he was driving along Irving Street.

The police had initially believed that the shooting was a case of mistaken identity.

A relative of the dead man, who declined to give any information until the arrival of his parents from overseas, indicated that the car that Narine was driving belonged to the family, which almost ruled out the mistaken identity theory.

But judging from what has been garnered so far, the police have been making very little headway into several brutal crimes that were committed in the country so far.