Hijacked taxi driver…Suspect’s mother implicates son in murder

Jun 15, 2014 News

…‘they have to face the penalty’ – suspects’ relatives

By Latoya Giles and Romila Boodram

Relatives of the two teenage boys who allegedly murdered Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, taxi driver Dhanraj Latchman,

Murdered:
Dhanraj Latchman

said that if the two indeed committed the act, they should face the consequences to the fullest.
Around 19:30 hrs on Friday, the decomposed body of 17-year-old Latchman was discovered by ranks in a cane field at Parika.
Mother of one of the suspects, Rafina Alli, told Kaieteur News yesterday that if her son did commit the act he will have to face whatever judgment the law sees fit. “As a mother I cannot and would not support what they did.”
According to Alli, the two suspects, Shazim Alli, 18, and Aswraf Alli, 17, are cousins and live about two doors from each other in Lusignan, and just two streets away from the victim.
Alli maintained that she was not hiding or covering up anything for her son in the matter. The mother said that she believes her nephew was the mastermind in the killing but that her son played a part and for that he should be punished.
According to Alli, her son was working with his father as a carpenter in Corentyne, Berbice and was only home for about a month now.
“His cousin (Aswraf Alli) used to live in Parika and he came here two months ago. I don’t really know much about him but when he came from Parika, he stayed by his grandmother and he use to come spend a two nights by me but I had no idea he was up to something,” the mother explained.
Alli added that her son left home in a taxi to follow his cousin to Parika to collect money.
“After he left, 9 o’clock passed and he didn’t come home so I went to bed. It was around 12:30 I hear my husband answer somebody and then he tell me somebody by the gate so we go out,” Alli explained.
The woman said that the person at the gate was the victim’s mother. Alli said that she was asked by the woman if she had hired a taxi.
“I told her I didn’t hire any taxi but she insisted someone used a taxi from the house, and that is when I decided to ask my son,” the woman told Kaieteur News.
She added that at that time she couldn’t say whether her son was at home because she did not stay up to wait on him.
“I told her that I don’t know if my son home because I was in my bed so I went inside and I ask my other son if his brother came home. He said that he was in his bed so I went and wake him,” the mother explained.

The two alleged killers.

She said that her son went outside and told Latchman’s mother that he and his cousin hired the taxi and that they went to Parika to collect money.
“He tell them when they reach Parika, the guy was praying so they left without collecting the money. The lady told her that her son did not reach home and my son told her that he had picked up two more persons who were going Enmore,” Alli told Kaieteur News.
The victim’s mother left but later returned around 02:00hrs with the police.
“I was in bed but I wasn’t sleeping and I hear this voice calling and when I look out I see the police at the gate and a lot of people so we come out and open the gate and the police said that they want talk to my son.”
They picked up his cousin while heading out the street.
Father in custody….
According to Rafina Alli, after her son was taken into police custody, she and her husband decided to check her son’s room.
“We found a phone and my children tell me that it is a Blackberry and that the police gone come lock we up because they can trace it so my husband threw it away but my son tell the police where he left the phone and when they come search, they couldn’t find it.”
She said that they found the phone on Friday and her husband was taken into police custody.
“They find the car key and another phone in a small drain though the street,” the woman explained.
Police said that the suspects, aged 18 and 17, confessed under intense interrogation to strangling 17-year-old Latchman with the seatbelt of his car, after hiring him last Wednesday to take them from Lusignan, East Coast Demerara, to Parika.
The alleged killers also revealed that they had planned to sell the slain driver’s car.
Accompanied by ranks from ‘A’ Division, the teenage suspects on Friday led the detectives to a desolate area some four miles off the East Bank Essequibo Public Road.
Within minutes, detectives found Latchman’s decomposed and apparently battered remains in a nearby cane field. Some of the slain man’s relatives were present but were not allowed to see the body.
Police detained the teens on Thursday morning after Latchman’s mother, Lynette Daby, informed ranks that her son had called the names of his two passengers, who reside a short distance away from their home
Last January, a group of youths was charged with killing Pegasus taxi driver Rudranauth Jeeboo and dumping his body in Cane view Avenue, South Ruimveldt.
Some of the suspects were also implicated in the murder of taxi driver Raphael Campbell. The 30-year-old Campbell of Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, was shot in the head and his body dumped at Liliendaal.