Kidnappers threaten pastor

PASTOR Earl Phillip of the Lighhouse Ministries, was contacted by phone on Friday last and threatened by the kidnappers of 21-year-old Kerri Greaves, daughter of Newsday’s senior reporter, Debra Ravello-Greaves. The pastor’s daughter, Vanessa, 27, was in company with Kerri when both women were held in Maraval last Wednesday night. Vanessa was freed hours after but Kerri has not been seen or heard of since. Phillip, 57, said yesterday he reported the matter to the police and informed them that he would not be intimidated or frightened by such people. “I told the police that if the kidnappers come close to my home, they (police) would have to come in ambulances for the kidnappers’ bodies to take them back to the morgue,” he said.

Phillip, Pastor of the Lighthouse Ministries, Duke Street, Port-of-Spain, said when the kidnappers called his home, they told him that it appears that Kerri’s relatives were not going to pay any money and they asked what he (Phillip) could do about the situation. “I told them ‘not a flipping thing’,” Phillip said.  He added that he told the kidnappers that they were bandits and crooks, who were just out to fleece people out of their money without working hard. The pastor said the kidnappers also threatened his life, saying they know where he lives and that they would come for him. “I told them if it was my children, I also would not have paid any money,” he said.

At the time of the kidnapping, Kerri had just returned from visiting her boyfriend, Qwesi Toussaint, who lives at Riversdale Road, Maraval, when a black B13 Nissan Sentra vehicle pulled alongide and snatched the two women, who are members of the pastor’s church. Phillip said he was saddened about Kerri’s kidnapping. He said Kerri has given her life to God, in an effort to have a bright future. “Those bandits and crooks are holding her against her will to excise money from her parents,” he said, later pleading with the young woman’s relatives not to heed the kidnappers’ request whatsoever.

Saying that the Government of the day is “too light” on kidnapping, Phillip said it is time for the law to be amended since kidnapping is a serious offence, one that deserves a life imprisonment. He called on the kidnappers to release Kerri, a business student. Police sources, meanwhile, said yesterday that members of the Anti Kidnapping Squad (AKS) are working along certain lines in the matter, the 15th kidnapping for ransom for the year. AKS sources said yesterday they made several attempts to find Greaves, using a combined police/army contingent Sunday to search several ares in the Maraval district, but all proved to be futile. Searches yesterday also proved futile. Investigations under AKS chief, Sr Supt Gilbert Reyes are continuing.