Four charged with Neisha’s kidnapping

Neisha was kidnapped from her uncle’s house in Tabaquite on April 22 while doing schoolwork. The girl was released unharmed in a cemetery in Forres Park, Claxton Bay, about 1 am on Monday.

The four accused — Mousa Peters, 17, his brother Maxwell Bruce, 20, both of Savonetta Road, Couva; Keron Harris, 26, of Embacadere, San Fernando, and Brian Pierre, 30, of Tabaquite, appeared before Assistant Clerk of the Peace Piary Seepersad-Ali around 2 pm. The charges read to the four were for kidnapping, robbery with aggravation and false     imprisonment.

The men were not called on to plead to the charges, which were laid indictably by PC Atiba Williams of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad.

Seepersad-Ali remanded them into custody to appear today in the same court before a magistrate.

Police said yesterday that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of a fifth person. A report stated that when police attempted to arrest that man, he was shot four times. He is warded at the San Fernando General Hospital in a stable condition.   

In reading the charges against the four accused yesterday, Seepersad-Ali stated that on Friday April 22 at Main Road, Tabaquite, the men took away Neisha Seeteram against her will. The other charge alleged that on that same day, the accused, armed with firearms, robbed Neisha’s aunt Pamela Seecharan of $4,000, a Motorola cellular phone valued $1,200, and $12,400 worth of jewelry.

Peters and Bruce were slapped with a separate charge — that between April 22 and May 2, 2005, at Savonetta Road, Phoenix Park, Couva — they falsely imprisoned Neisha Seeteram. The charge also alleged that the accused, during that period, extorted $2,400 from Pamela Seecharan.

Attorney Darryl Giles, who represented the four accused, told Seepersad-Ali that his clients sustained injuries during their arrest. He said they were in urgent need of medical attention.

Giles added that the accused men were in serious pain. The attorney requested Seepersad-Ali to make a note of the complaint.

Bruce took off his long sleeve jersey and attempted to show Seepersad-Ali a wound on his hand, but was ordered by the police to put back on his clothes. Harris was limping, Pierre had a bandage on his right arm, and Peters’ T-shirt was torn and dirty.

Court prosecutor, PC Curt Othello, told Seepersad-Ali that his information was that the accused’s injuries were old wounds.