THE SAGA OF SHERIFF DHANRAJ

The other side of former UNC Minister Dhanraj Singh first came to public notice in April 1997 when he was charged with assaulting retired Asst. Police Commissioner Norton Registe during a traffic jam on the Solomon Hochoy Highway. He was then MP for Point a Pierre and Local Government Minister. One year later he was again in a clash, this time with workers at Tunapuna Piarco Regional Coropration who accused him of using his gun to intimidate them. According to the workers, Singh rushed on to the premises and let the workers see that he had a gun. Two days later following public outcry against his behaviour then Prime Minster Basdeo Panday ordered Singh to hand in his gun to the police for safe keeping.

Then came October 1998 when accountant Sohaila Omardeen reported to the Gasparillo Police that Singh verbally abused her and threatened to show her his gun while she was on a visit to her Charles Street South Gasparillo home. Singh had gone there to investigate complaints of the cleaning up of the Marie Doleur  river which runs at the back of her home. On that same occasion Singh’s wife Leela denied that he was an abusive husband but by November of that same year Singh admitted that he slapped his wife Leela once in their marriage which at the time amounted to 14 years. Singh’s controversial life continued with several battles with PNM controlled regional corporations. He threatened to halt funding at several of these bodies. There were also charges by some men that Singh had summoned them to his constituency office in Marabella where they alleged that they were beaten by members of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen. Singh’s troubles continued when he was sued for $2M by Jerry Narace, Chairman of the PNM controlled Tunapuna Piarco Regional Corporation for allegedly libelous statements against Narace.

Singh seemed unable to keep out of the news and on November 20, 1999 he escaped death when a jeep in which he was a passenger ran off a road in Williamsville and overturned several times. But Singh’s real troubles begain in January 2000 when police investigators searched his Gasparillo home following the murder of Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Chairman Hansraj Sumairsingh on December 31, 2000. Sumairsingh’s body had been found in his Mayaro holiday home with gunshot wounds. Things got worse for Singh when the then Opposition MP Hedwige Bereaux produced in Parliament a letter written to then PM Basdeo Panday by Sumairsingh before his death in which he claimed that Singh had threatened him. By now PNM opposition members were calling for Singh’s resignation but after taking a few days leave, Singh returned to his office making it clear that he was not going anywhere. In February 2000 Singh began an investigation into reports of criminal activities in the URP. The following month he announced that he had found no such evidence. However in August that year Panday removed the URP programme from Singh’s portfolio and assigned it to another Minister.
Then came preparations for the 2000 elections and Singh was turned down as the prospective candidate for Pointe a Pierre. 

Despite all the various allegations circling about Dhanraj, the Muslimeen and URP elements it was not until October 2000 that Panday fired Singh and handed over the local government ministry to Carlos John. Singh wrote to Panday saying that he was not interested in contesting the election. In October fraud squad officers searched his home and office and later that same month Singh flew out to New York where he spent several months. On his return to Trinidad he was arrested for the murder of Singh on Feburary 19, 2001. He was taken at 5am from his home in Williamsville and brought to the Police Administration building in Port of Spain where he was finger printed, photographed and charged in the presence of his two attorneys Prakash Ramadhar and Shastri Persad. He had already been charged with 27 counts of fraud arising out of the operations of the URP, charges which are still standing and for which he has to answer. Also charged with Singh was Elliot Hypolite of Chaguanas also known as Abdullah Mutageen but Hypolite received immunity and became the State’s main witness against Singh, in the murder trial that ended yesterday.

After various constitutional motions right up to the Privy Council all of which failed, Dhanraj went to trial in the Hall of Justice on September 19. He was defended by QC Karl Hudson Phillips while the state prosecutor was British QC Timothy Cassel. He was acquitted yesterday of the charge. Who was this man Sumairsingh? Hansraj Sumairsingh was Chairman of the Mayaro/Rio Claro Regional Corporation. Reports of two letters written by Sumairsingh to Panday complained of irregularities in the URP in Mayaro/Rio Claro and of threats made to his life by a government minister. After his body was found in his Mayaro beach house, Sumairsingh was cremated at Mafeking cremation site Mayaro on January 5. His service was attended by Prime Minsiter Panday who recalled he could not remember receiving the Sumairsingh letters. At the time of his death, Sumairsingh’s wife Sandra Sumairsingh was pregnant and their baby son Hansie was born three months after the murder. The UNC offered a reward of $100,000 for anyone who had information that could lead to the arrest of Sumairsingh’s killers. Despite the offer of the award some members of Sumairsingh’s family believed that the UNC did not care what happened to the family and that no party official had kept in touch with them after the funeral. They described the reward offer as a smokescreen. The Sumairsingh’s believed that his stand against corruption in the URP project lead to his death.