Fishermen were tied to anchor and thrown overboard—Suspect tells police

May 31, 2016 News

Police officials have made progress in their investigations involving last Friday’s piracy attacks which resulted in one fisherman being dead and three others from the fishing boat, “Rosanna 664”, still missing.
Kaieteur News understands that one of the suspects apprehended by law enforcement officers last Saturday has confessed to his involvement in the act.
Commander of ‘B’ Division, Assistant Commissioner Ian Amsterdam, stated that according to the information disclosed by the suspect, the missing men were tied to an anchor and thrown overboard. Commander Amsterdam added that the confession also hinted at the involvement of a captain and the crew members of another fishing boat allegedly involved in the attacks.
Dead is Hemchand Sukdeo, whose body was pulled up in a fishing seine hours after the attack.
Still missing are Dhanpaul Rampaul of No. 67 Village, Corentyne; Dochand Sukra aka ‘Bucher”, 54, of No. 55 Village, Corentyne; and Munesh Churram, aka “Boyo”, 26.
Boat Captain Seepersaud Persaud, who was also thrown overboard, managed to survive the ordeal by drifting for hours until he was rescued by another boat.
Police investigators have been able to confirm that three boats were attacked on Friday. However, the entire crews of two of the boats have been accounted for.
Reports indicated that the first attack was carried out on the Rosanna 664 captained by Persaud, who was thrown overboard by the hijackers and left for dead. The other crew members were held captive and assisted the hijackers in robbing two other vessels. At the end of the ordeal, the bandits threw Hemchand Sukdeo and the other crew members overboard after severely beating him.
Sukdeo’s body was subsequently found with a chop wound to his head by other fishermen entangled in their seine. The pirates, executing their second hijacking, relieved a vessel “Ackbar SK 1509”, carrying a captain and crew of four of over $600,000 in fish.
Owner of that vessel, Clet Natoo stated that according to information given to him by his crew members, the hijackers doused the entire boat with gasoline and threatened to set it alight but did not carry out the act.
“Dem throw two bucket gasoline all over on me boat and den dem seh ‘leh we bun it up and go away’ but me nah know wha happen cause dem ain’t bun it. Dem just go away,” Natoo explained.
The pirates then went on to rob another vessel owned by Hazrat Ali where the same actions were carried out but threats were not made.
Natoo added that his crew men left their seines at sea and returned ashore fearing the men would return to complete the job. Natoo mentioned that his crew men disclosed that the men who offloaded the stolen fish were the missing crew members of Seepersaud’s boat. Information revealed that the pirates, after carrying out the attacks, allegedly sold the stolen fish to the captain of another boat they previously attacked.
Both crews returned to land unharmed. The missing boat (Rosanna 665) was recovered by its owner drifting in the No. 52 foreshore area. Commander Amsterdam disclosed that the pirate boat captain is the mastermind but the other suspects are being implicated. Meanwhile, the search is still ongoing for the missing fishermen who family members hope are still alive. Investigations are continuing.

1 thoughts on “Fishermen were tied to anchor and thrown overboard—Suspect tells police”

Cotton_Candy May 31, 2016 at 10:19 am

Greed is a deadly sin and it seems that these fishermen has beef with each other and would do anything to get what they want.