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Brutalised arson suspect changes story
-family claims he’s being threatened
Troy Small nurses his injured leg
By Andrunie Harris
A relative of arson suspect Troy Small has alleged that he has received threats from persons who brutalised the West La Penitence man while questioning him about the fire at the Health Ministry.
The relative made this claim after learning that Small, called ‘Cats’, is now claiming that he does not know if the men who brutalised him were ranks from the Guyana Defence Force.
According to the relative, the threats Small has received have made him fearful for his life, and he is now saying that he “does not want any story.”
Some of Small’s relatives have also expressed fear of reprisals from the persons who brutalised him.
Kaieteur News had visited the man at his West La Penitence home on Wednesday. During the visit, Small and his relatives had indicated that he was to have met this week with welfare personnel from the GDF.
But yesterday, Small turned up at Kaieteur News and claimed that he was not in his right state of mind on the night he was picked up.
In this new version, the man said that the allegations he made were influenced by the people around him that night.
Still trembling slightly from a condition he suffers, ‘Cats’ said that he would now just like some assistance from the government to find the people who kidnapped and brutalised him.
Small had initially told reporters that on the night of July 20, he was forced into a car by three men, one of whom he had at the time identified as a member of the Guyana Defence Force.
But he now says that the men from the vehicle were in civilian attire.
He now alleged that after drinking, he was making his way home alone, and not with a friend as was previously stated, when the car pulled up beside him.
He stated yesterday that the men in the car took him in the general direction of the cemetery, but that he did not actually see where he was heading, because of the bag over his head.
During the beatings, the men questioned him about his alleged involvement in the Health Ministry fire. He maintains that he told them he knew nothing of the fire. After being beaten for about ten minutes, he was allegedly driven blindfolded to Eve Leary, which he only recognized because of ‘all the vehicles’ in the ‘big yard’. However, he could not say if the men that had kidnapped him were the ones who took him to Eve Leary.
Small maintains that he was taken into a room, but now says that the police ranks or CID officers (he can’t be sure which ones they were) ordered that he be taken to the hospital.
He had initially said he was first taken to the Brickdam Police Station and then the Alberttown Police Station. He now recalls that he received “little treatment at the hospital.”
“They jus throw a ting over me foot, and (a nurse) jook (injected) me here (his wrist)”.
Small now claims that he awoke the next morning on a bench in Eve Leary and was again asked about the fire, this time in a more calm fashion by ‘people’ wearing ‘shirt jac and pants’.
He was then taken to the Alberttown Police Station. After spending two days on a bench at Alberttown, he was placed on $10,000 station bail.
He then recalled that he returned back to the hospital, received ‘no sorta’ treatment and discharged himself.
Troy Small now believes that his kidnapping was a case of mistaken identity, because the people fingered in the Ministry fire come from the same area in which he resides.
He also doesn’t ‘want anybody thinking that I want cause (trouble with) anything’.
Small is now asking the Government for some compensation and help, as he is in no fit condition to work, and has three children to look after.
At the time of his release from police custody he spoke of begging because he had one child whom he was supporting.
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