Murder warrant executed

FUGITIVE David “Buffy” Millard is back home, just three days after he was arrested with four others in an upscale district outside of Georgetown, Guyana.

A Trinidad and Tobago Air Wing 19-seater plane brought Millard home after the Guyanese authorities decided to deport him to Trinidad to face a murder charge.

Millard, who was detained by the Guyana Police pending investigations into the disappearance of 30 AK-47 rifles and five pistols from the Guyana Defence Force Headquarters on February 23, applied in the Guyana High Court yesterday for a conservatory order to stop the Guyana Immigration Department from deporting him.

But the mistake he made was that he filed the application in the name of Edmund De Freitas. Millard had been using this name in Guyana for the past two and half years. He was even caught last week with a Guya-nese passport and driver’s permit in the name of Edmund De Freitas.

The move to bring him home started on Friday night when TT’s Attorney General John Jeremie spoke by telephone to Guyana’s President Bharat Jagdeo. He then spoke with Guyana’s Attorney General Doodnath Singh.

It was then decided that the TT authorities would go to Guyana for Millard. A policeman who knew Millard personally, was sent to Guyana with the TT Air Wing plane. The flight left Piarco International Airport at 11.30 am yesterday.

On arrival in Guyana, the policeman presented the Guyanese authorities with a warrant for Millard’s arrest for murder. He also positively identified Millard as the wanted man. The Guyanese authorities, having been presented with the warrant, decided to deport Millard to Trinidad. They also confirmed that Millard had overstayed his time in Guyana. They decided to waive any charges they would have filed against the Trinidadian.

The plane left Guyana shortly before 4 pm. Minutes later, a vehicle from the Special Anti-Crime Unit turned up at the Air Wing headquarters. The sentry on duty chased media personnel from the front gate, saying that it was a restricted area.

Photographers were placed behind two wire fences with very little visibility.

At exactly 5 pm, the Air Wing plane landed at Piarco and was taxied to the hangar. Millard was taken off the aircraft in handcuffs and placed inside the hangar where he was processed. At 5.55 pm, a white B-15 Sentra drove into the compound and reversed into the hangar. Millard was placed in the back seat and five minutes later, the Sentra followed by the Special Anti-Crime Unit vehicle hurriedly left Piarco for the Port-of-Spain CID.

Millard is expected to be charged with the June 4, 2003 murder of Jilla Bowen outside MovieTowne cineplex. He will appear before a Port-of-Spain magistrate tomorrow.

Millard, also known as Mustapha Abdullah Muhammad, was held with four other persons during a raid on a house just south of Georgetown. One of the other persons was also identified as a Trinidadian, Mohammed Hassin, aka Joseph Aboud.

The authorities reportedly seized a Gerricho nine-millimetre pistol and 57 rounds of am-munition, cell phones, computers, and phone-tapping and call-tracing equipment, among other things.

Millard was a top member of the Jamaat al Muslimeen and played a leading role at the funeral service of slain Muslim leader Mark Guerra in March 2003. In June 2003, it was alleged that ‘Buffy’ and Bakr conspired together at his house in Diamond Vale, Diego Martin, to murder two expelled members of the Jamaat — Salim Rasheed and Zaki Aubaidah.

As local police investigators concluded their investigations, Millard fled Trinidad for Guyana in August 2003. On August 21, 2003, Bakr was arrested and charged with conspiracy to murder. He stood trial alone in January 2005 before Justice Mark Mohammed in the Port-of-Spain Third Criminal Court.

But the jury, on March 16, 2005, failed to arrive at a verdict and a retrial was ordered. The Trinidad and Tobago Police sought Guyana’s assistance in 2005 to track down Millard, but all efforts were unsuccessful.

In November 2005, Bakr was charged with sedition, incitement and terrorism arising out of his Eid sermon at the Muslimeen’s Mucurapo Road compound on November 7. He has been refused bail, but his second trial on the conspiracy to murder charge will begin on October 2.

In Guyana, Millard reportedly told the Guyana authorities that he worked as a bodyguard to a former Guyanese policeman. That person has a housing estate called Hutsonville on the east bank of the Demerara River. All 20 houses in the gated community were searched by security officials on Wednesday. The Firearms Bureau Unit is conducting ballistic tests on the seized weapon, military sources stated.

According to reports, Millard retained the services of a lawyer, claiming that he cannot be extradited to Trinidad as he is a US citizen. He reportedly claimed that he served in the US army, but Guyana authorities are not worried.