The case of the hundred-dollar hit-man

Jun 06, 2010 Features / Columnists, Murder and Mystery

– When long-hearted Saleem masterminded the murder of his own brother, he forgot one simple rule…

Looking back at the case, one could say that he might have gotten away scot-free with murder if he had just followed one rule: Always pay the hit-man.
An unpaid hit-man is an angry hit-man, and an angry hit-man will not only implicate himself, but his employer as well.
Here are bits and pieces of what happened 23 years ago.
On March 19, 1987, 27-year-old Abdool Kaleem Yassin was found shot dead at his Riverstown, Essequibo home.
From all appearances, the young man, who came from a wealthy business family, was the victim of a violent robbery.
His elder brother, 32-year-old Abdool Saleem Yassin, was beside himself with grief and rage. A policeman recalled that so enraged was the elder Yassin that he pleaded with the police to keep his firearm, since he feared that he would shoot the killer if the suspect were ever apprehended.
But then word began to filter back to investigators that this wasn’t as straightforward a case as it appeared.
Word on the street was that Noel Thomas, a 27-year-old from the community, was telling people that he had killed Kaleem Yassin at his elder sibling’s behest.

According to this story, Abdool Saleem Yassin had promised Thomas seven hundred dollars to murder the younger brother.
Thomas had allegedly done the job after being paid three hundred dollars (some say a hundred dollars). But now, according to the story, Kaleem was refusing to pay the rest of the money.
Detectives Michael Marks and Heeralall Mackenlall, at the time two of Guyana’s top investigators, were on the case.
They didn’t have to look far for the motive.
The head of the Yassin household had made a will in which he bequeathed most of his property to the younger brother.
A furious Saleem Yassin then hatched his scheme to get his brother out of the way.
Detectives arrested Yassin and his alleged assassin Thomas, and, under interrogation, both men eventually confessed.
Although Thomas alleged that he was tortured to sign his confession statement, they were charged with murder, convicted, and, despite appeals, sentenced to death.
They were scheduled to hang from the Camp Street gallows on February 5, 1996.
But just days before his execution, Yassin’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Doodnauth Singh, filed a motion in the High Court seeking to have the sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
He argued that his client’s rights against degrading and inhumane treatment would be violated if the state proceeded with the hanging.
In interviews with the media, Yassin’s
father said that he had already lost one son and did not want to lose another. He later told me that he had depleted most of his assets in trying to save his son.
After a lengthy hearing, attorneys for Yassin and Thomas wrote to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and there was a temporary stay.
Since then, legal hurdles put the executions in limbo.
Saleem Yassin, whose greed caused his downfall, died of tuberculosis in the Georgetown Prisons some years ago.
His alleged hit-man, who the other inmates nicknamed ‘hundred ’ because of the hundred dollar ‘advance’ he took to kill the younger Yassin, still languishes on death row.
Relatives said that his eyesight is failing, and they have written to President Bharrat Jagdeo pleading for the now 50-year-old man’s release
According to one relative, Thomas had told her he didn’t know why he had committed the act and that if “the clock could be turned back”, he would never do something like that again.
But it seems like some people never learn.
Another businessman is being accused of hiring a hit man to get rid of someone close to him. In this case, the businessman allegedly hired a 22-year-old man to kill his reputed wife. The young man allegedly took a $30,000 ‘advance’ before carrying out the act.
But according to the police, the alleged hit man made some glaring errors. First, his victim remained alive long enough to give police a description of him.
Then, police overheard a phone conversation between him and the alleged mastermind.
Oh well, it seems like you can’t get good hired help these days.

If you have any information about other unusual cases, please contact Kaieteur News at our Lot 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown location. We can be reached on telephone numbers 225-8465, 225-8491 or 225-8473. You need not disclose your identity.
You can also contact Michael Jordan at his email address mjdragon@hotmail.com

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