Slain taxi driver…Wife denies victim owed money for cars

Aug 30, 2012 News

The wife of slain taxi driver 25-year-old Sean De Freitas Sookdeo is furious at reports that her dead husband had owed persons for cars.
Speaking to Kaieteur News last night, Alicia Sookdeo stated that while her husband did have debts for clothing he took while running a boutique, she did not believe that that was the reason for his execution.

Sean De Freitas Sookdeo

Sean Sookdeo’s bullet-riddled body was discovered at Thomas Lands early Tuesday morning, in what appears to be a deliberate and well-planned execution.
Although they have almost ruled out robbery, police have not yet come up with a definitive motive for the killing.
However, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud is quoted as telling another section of the media that Sookdeo had allegedly owed several persons advances for vehicles.
According to the report, Deputy Commissioner Persaud said that investigators have learnt that about one month ago, a man had called the dead man’s wife, demanding a vehicle or money, and had made threatening remarks.
However, Alicia Sookdeo was adamant that her husband did not owe anyone but the bank for his vehicle.
The report also stated that investigators have learnt that the now dead man had owed amounts of G$500,000 and G$300,000.
While the dead man’s wife acknowledged the sums owed, she explained that they were as a result of their boutique business running bankrupt in May this year.
“But the people we owe are not that type that would kill him like that,” she said.
“The rent we had to pay for our boutique was very high and then we got robbed. When we gave up the store my husband started working taxi to support me and our daughter. My husband was a sweet, peaceful, kind and hard-working man,” Alicia Sookdeo told Kaieteur News.
According to the woman, her husband, who recently returned from the United States of America, was planning to return there with the aim of importing clothing to restart his business.
She said that she and her daughter were scheduled to depart for Trinidad on Tuesday and while her husband was not travelling with them he was planning to join them a few days later.
“He was sending us on a vacation,” the woman stated.
Sookdeo’s body bore gunshot wounds to the head, hands and abdomen and according to reliable police sources close to the investigation, the victim, who hailed from Block CC Mon Repos on the East Coast of Demerara, appeared to have been tortured also.
The source said that there were what appeared to be burns to his neck and abdomen.
A police source on the East Coast of Demerara told Kaieteur News that Sookdeo is known to them, although he has never been charged with any criminal offence.
For his mother, Sandra Sookdeo, and other relatives, the month of August will forever bear significance since it is also in this month that they lost another close relative under similar circumstances.
Six years ago, her brother, Mark Maikoo, was among the five Kaieteur News pressmen who were senselessly slaughtered by a marauding gang at the company’s Eccles, East Bank Demerara location.
Sandra Sookdeo had a message for her son’s killer or killers.
“Whoever did this to my son, let them realize that God is watching and the way that they killed him was not right. Their turn is coming.”