Pirate attack…Missing fisherman’s body washes up on M’cony foreshore

Jul 18, 2014 News

After exactly one week of intense searching by investigators in neighbouring Suriname, the body of 40-year-old Andrew

Dead: Andrew Gopie

Gopie, washed up on the Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara foreshore around 16:00 hrs yesterday.
This recent discovery has left more questions than answers for the lone survivor, Feroze Hack, who is currently being interrogated in Suriname after he claimed that the piracy attack occurred in that district.
Gopie was among four other fishermen who were reported missing two Thursdays ago after pirates allegedly chopped and kicked them overboard before stripping their vessel.
Hack, the boat captain, alleged that he survived the attack which occurred around 22:00hrs two Tuesdays ago by swimming until he saw a small boat which then took him to a Suriname Police Station.
Yesterday, Gopie’s sister said that she found her brother’s body with the help of a Pandit.
“After I hear about the incident I went to the Pandit yesterday (Wednesday) and he tell me to do some work and after I finished the work he tell me to go to the seawall and look around and I will find his body and I did,” the sister lamented.
She added that her brother’s body did not smell and it was not badly decomposed as it should have been if he was indeed thrown overboard two Tuesdays ago.
In tears, the woman said that she and other family members found the lifeless body on a sandbank.
“He had like a lash on his back and another on his hand,” the sister lamented.
Those still missing are Vinesh Drunarine of Uitvlugt; Raymond Gomes and Chandrapaul Jallim of Recht-Door-Zee, West Bank Demerara.
The boat captain told Surinamese detectives that he and his crew were sailing when another vessel slammed into their boat and attacked them. The vessel is registered in Suriname and is operated by Deochand Bharat and a Surinamese partner,
The boat was later discovered last Monday near Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, not far from where Gopie’s body was discovered.
Investigators are now puzzled by the boat captain’s story.

The three missing fishermen

“Now, if this thing happened in Suriname, how come the body floated up here? Not only the body, but the boat?” a police source said.
The boat captain had also claimed that after stripping their vessel, the pirates carried them over to their (pirate) boat, drove off a little and kicked them overboard. He claimed that before he was kicked overboard he managed to untie his hands, so by the time he was in the water, his hands were free.
In a Suriname police station, Hack reportedly told Bharat that when he was in the water he saw three of the four fishermen, most of whom had already untied their hands. He said that he swam to them but they were separated when the pirates drove their vessel “right up to them.”
Kaieteur News understands that the captain told police officers and Bharat that after he was separated from his crew members, he swam to a mud-flat and fell asleep.
“He said that after he fall sleep some mosquito start bite he and wake he up and he start swim again until he see a boat and from there he contacted me,” Bharat said.
Investigations are ongoing.