TEENAGER Phillip Seerattan, described as a “very, very quiet” person, shot security guard William Ramnarine in the face and hip when he was confronted near the guard booth of the International School at Westmoorings on November 20, 2002. Ramnarine, who is still employed at the school, told a Coroner’s Inquest yesterday that when he saw Seerattan on that fateful day, he felt his life was threatened. He said he ran when he saw the gun.  “I was in fear for my life then,” he told Coroner Sherman Mc Nicolls at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court. Ramnarine said he was in a lot of pain after he was shot in the face. The security officer said Seerattan caused him to fear for his life. “I did nothing for Phillip Seerattan to shoot me. I did not provoke him. I did not know him before that day. I don’t know why he shot me. I have never found a reason why he shot me.”

Coroner Mc Nicolls is inquiring into the death of 18-year-old Seerattan who was shot dead by the police at the International School at Westmoorings. Patricia Roberts is looking after the interest of the Seerattan family. Martin George represents the two police officers involved in the shooting — PC Gary Moore and WPC Saud Weekes. Lydia Mendonca appears for the International School, while Sgt Kenneth Cordner is the court representative. Hearing resumes this morning. Ramnarine, who lives at Charlieville, said he reported for work at the International School at 6 am on November 20, 2002. He said that around 3 pm, a man dressed in black and carrying a black knap sack came to the security booth where he was stationed. The guy, identified as Seerattan, came to collect his SAT results. After a conversation lasting some 15 seconds, Ramnarine said he issued Seerattan with a visitor’s pass. Ramnarine became suspicious when he noticed that Seerattan placed the visitor’s pass in his trousers pocket.

Ramnarine spoke to Seerattan again. The security officer said he telephoned “his people inside.” He then noticed that Seerattan had walked towards the front office. “I spoke to him again. He came back to my booth and was fixing his crotch area. He went to the back of the booth and I heard an explosion. “I came out of the booth to see what it was. I saw the guy right behind the glass door. I then saw a black object resembling a gun. I moved away from the glass door and the guy pointed the gun to my face. He was about five feet away. I raised my left hand and spoke to him, saying ‘pal, let us talk this thing over.’ I turned my face away.” Ramnarine said he heard another explosion and he started to run. He ran about six steps when he heard a third explosion and fell face down on the ground. He then saw one of his colleagues, Anthony Ralph, who helped him to the cafeteria. He was left there for a short period until Ralph returned with other staff members.

The ambulance took him to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was treated for injuries to the left side of his face and his right hip. “My teeth were broken and blood was flowing. I knew I sustained injuries to my face,” Ramnarine told the Coroner. Under cross-examination by Patricia Roberts, Ramnarine said before Seerattan came to his booth, he got a wireless message from one Brian Mitchell. He denied that Mitchell had put him “on guard” about Seerattan. Ramnarine said after he was shot, he never saw Seerattan again. He did not see Ralph at the time he was shot. When asked why he tried to tried to talk to Seerattan, Ramnarine said he did so in an attempt to get the teenager to put away the gun. This did not work — he was still shot in the face. Ramnarine described Seerattan as a “very, very quiet person.”

LISA JAIKERANSINGH admitted yesterday that she hid in an office when shots rang out at the International School in Westmoorings on November 20, 2002. Jaikeransingh, administrative assistant to the director, said she reported for work around 7 am. Around 3 pm, she was standing at the front desk when she saw a man dressed in black with a knap sack and something in his hand which she thought was a toy gun pointing it downwards. Jaikeransingh said she heard a loud noise which sounded like a fire cracker. She said the business manager and security officer Anthony Ralph, who were in a meeting, ran out. She saw Ralph push the gunman and hold on to him by the shoulder. More explosions were heard.

Jaikeransingh could not say to whom the gunman was pointing his gun. She did not see security officer William Ramnarine at any stage. Terrified at what was happening, Jaikeransingh said she ran into the office of the business manager and locked the door. She said she followed emergency procedures and called for the chairman of the Board. She then looked through the window and saw members of staff on the outside. She heard no more noises. She came out of the office and was back at the receptionist’s desk. Jaikeransingh said she never saw the gunman again. She remembered calling the police 999 unit. Minutes later, she saw Ralph with several police officers at the front of the building. But after speaking with Ralph again, she hid again in the business manager’s office. There, she heard another five to six shots. Jaikeransingh stayed in the office for ten minutes. She heard voices which she recognised and felt it was safe to go outside again. There were a lot of police officers in the office. She made two announcements and all the students and staff later assembled in the gymnasium.

Another witness, police photographer PC Wayne Phillip said yesterday that he took 13 photographs of the scene at Westmoorings on November 20, 2002. At the scene, he was shown several areas by the investigating officer, ASP Terrence Badal. He took photographs of areas with metal objects as well as an upper room at the school. He also took pictures of broken panes near to the door leading to the computer room. He also took photographs of two areas with stains resembling blood. When cross-examined by Patricia Roberts, PC Phillip said he would have taken more than 13 photos on the day in question. He could not remember, but promised to bring the negatives to court today.

A TEENAGED bandit, who grew tired while burglarising his neighbour’s house and fell asleep, was arrested by police yesterday. The 16-year-old boy from Fanny Village, Point Fortin, was held shortly after he ran from the scene with over $500 in cash and jewelry. Police reports on the incident stated that on Monday night, Akila Shears secured her house around 9.30 pm, only to be awakened hours later by a noise coming from another room. Shears told police that while checking around her house, she peeped into another bedroom and saw the teenaged intruder asleep in a bed. Shears screamed, jolting the sleeping teen from his slumber. The teen managed to grab some cash and jewelry from a dressing table before making a hasty exit.

However, freedom was short-lived as the victim made a report to the Point Fortin police, and officers who responded held the teen a short distance away. The teen was arrested and charged with burglary. He pleaded guilty to the offence before Senior Magistrate Herbert Charles, presiding in the Point Fortin Magistrates’ Court yesterday. Charles remanded the accused into custody at the Youth Traning Centre until September 17 when he will return to court to face judgment. In the meantime, the magistrate has ordered police to carry out a “trace” on the teen to see if he has a criminal record and/or pending cases.

Daisy Ramesar, 34, told Newsday yesterday that she didn’t want to have anything more to do with her estranged husband Johnny Logan, 42. She said: “All I want is my daughter (Candace) with me so that she can go to school with her brother and sister.” Candace is currently at home with her father while her siblings, Crystal and David, who were reunited with their mother just under a week ago, are now attending the Tunapuna Hindu School. In an earlier Newsday report, Logan accused Ramesar of abandoning their three children while he was working on an estate in Talparo. However Ramesar, extremely upset by the report, stated that Logan was not telling the truth. She added that she left their Malabar Branch Road house in Arima with the three children and went to live in Samaroo Village.

She also claimed that reports were made by her to both the Arima and Malabar Police Stations about Logan’s treatment of her. Then, while on an errand the day she moved, Logan, accompanied by some of his friends, went to her new home and took the children while a female relative looked on helplessly. Ramesar denied Logan’s charge that she was with someone else when she took the children and left their home. When contacted yesterday and told of Ramesar’s position, Logan, who at first insisted on sitting and talking things over with Ramesar, said he just didn’t want to fight the situation anymore. He then resignedly agreed that in the best interest of Candace, he would give serious thought to handing over the child to her mother, but on the condition that he has full visitation rights to his children. He also expressed grave concern about his children’s living conditions. However, when told that they were all with their mother alone in an apartment, he promised to sleep on the matter with a view to having Candace reconcile with her siblings.

FIVE young men beat a 15-year-old schoolboy with a piece of wood, after school hours on Monday before robbing him of $50. According to police reports, around 2.30 pm, the Form Four pupil of Carapichaima Senior Compreh-ensive school was walking along McLeod Street when he was accosted by the men. One of the men, armed with a piece of wood, beat the teen and relieved him of $50. The five then ran off. A report was made to the Freeport police and the injured schoolboy was taken to the Chaguanas Health Centre where he was treated and discharged. PC Persad of the Freeport police is continuing investigations.

FOR THE third time in four months expelled Jamaat-al-Muslimeen member Ken Gonzales, aka Kazim Rasheed, has come under fire from the gun. Gonzales, 32, of Carenage, was shot in the lower left thigh but discharged himself from the Sangre Grande Hospital saying he was not safe at that location.  He reportedly checked into another medical institution. The latest in the attacks on Gonzales occurred around 6.45 pm Tuesday when Gonzales, in company with Roger “Black Roger” Bridgeman and Neil “Rope” George, was travelling along Junction Road, Sangre Grande. Police said the vehicle, driven by George, a rigger with Amoco, was travelling north along Junction Road, when it slowed down about 500 metres from the Eastern Main Road to allow a vehicle to pass.

Occupants in the vehicle said they heard four gunshots coming from some bushes on the western side of the vehicle.  A man was reportedly seen running from the bushes, police said the occupants told them. When the smoke cleared, police said Gonzales told them he felt a burning sensation to the lower left leg.  He was taken to the Sangre Grande Hospital from where he discharged himself. A report was made later and police said a party of officers headed by Sgt Fermin Roy, and including Cpls Sankar and Mitchell and PCs Gadar and Baboolal visited the scene, where they found a projectile believed to have come from a 9mm or a .45 ammunition in the vehicle. No arrests were made up to late evening and Cpl Sankar of the Sangre Grande Criminal Investigations Department (CID) is continuing investigations.

On May 2, over 20 shots were fired at a blue Mercedes Benz in which Gonzales and another expelled Jamaat member, Lincoln “Salim” Alexis, were travelling. Gonzales’ four-year-old daughter, Jayideah, was also an occupant of the vehicle which was at the time being driven by Gonzales in the vicinity of Mathura and Patna Streets, St James. Another vehicle reportedly pulled alongside them and the occupants opened fire with what police described as a high-powered rifle. Gonzales and Alexis were grazed by bullets, while little Jayideah escaped unhurt. They were reportedly returning from Juma at the Mucurapo compound of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen. Sgt Nandram Moonilal of St James CID is investigating.

On August 12, police said Gonzales was threatened at gunpoint by a member of a religious group at his Carenage home. PC Worrel of the Carenage CID is continuing investigations. Gonzales, Alexis and Zaki Aubidah were expelled from the Jamaat organisation in May. The former had appeared in the Port-of-Spain Magistrate’s Court last July 19 on a provisional warrant for possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking in St Vincent and the Grenadines. He is alleged to have had 380 pounds of the illicit drugs in his possession on May 28, 2002, at Chateau Belair. The charge, laid by Insp Adam Joseph, was subsequently dismissed.

A 22-year-old man, who stole his aunt’s jewelry among other personal items valued at $835, was sent to jail for 180 days with hard labour by Scarborough Senior Magistrate Annette McKenzie. Dwayne Seepersad took a gold chain, wrist watch, a pair of shoes, torchlight and $20 in cash from the victim’s apartment at Granby Estate, Studley Park, east Tobago, last Thursday while the woman was out, according to evidence presented in the Scarborough First Court Monday by Prosecutor Ag Insp Fitzroy Gray. Seepersad told the court: “I decided to go back in the town so I took the things and sold them to buy food and take care of myself.”

He was charged by PC Kirt Baird of the Scarborough Police. Following certain leads, Baird confronted Seepersad, who subsequently confessed to the crime and later gave a statement to that effect. The facts of the case as presented to the court stated that the victim had gone out about 6.30 am leaving the door to the apartment unlocked. On her return some ten hours later, she found the items missing. None of the items were recovered.

The  League of Concerned Citizens will hold a public forum on Constitutional Reform for Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday at the Fifth Company Primary Baptist School, at Fifth Company Village, Moruga Road, starting at 9 am. According to the group, it is for historical reasons that the Fifth Company Village was chosen as the venue for the public forum since it was responsible for the appointment of the First Royal Commission on Constitution Reform for TT in 1887, by Queen Victoria.

The appointment of this first Commission resulted from a petition that was sent to Queen Victoria in 1886 by Rev Robert Andrews, the village pastor, complaining about the neglect of the ‘‘company villages’’ by the Colonial Administrator. In the petition, Rev Andrews asked the Queen that he be granted the authority to manage the affairs of the village. In responding to the petition, Queen Victoria gave instructions to the governor of the colony to appoint a Constitution Commission to look into the question of Constitution Reform for Trinidad. At the time, the Legislative Council of the colony comprised only nominated members.

As a result, the League of Concerned Citizens felt that the role of Fifth Company Village, 116 years ago, must be highlighted in an appropriate manner. Theme of Saturday’s discussions will be ‘‘whether Constitution Reform be based on the existing Republican Constitution ‘Westminster Model’ with ‘absolute power’ to a Prime Minister, or a Constitution that is truly Republican that places ‘power’ in the hands of the people where it truly belongs in a Republican Constitution.’’

DISCRIMINATION and victimisation were two strong words advanced by the All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers’ Trade Union (ATSGWTU) in the employment practices being adopted at the Usine Ste Madeleine sugar factory for the 2004 sugar cane crop. Rudranath Indarsingh, President General of the ATSGWTU, told the media yesterday at Rienzi Complex, Mc Bean, Couva, that Government had promised through a statement by Ken Valley, Minister of Trade and Commerce, that 75 percent of the new labour force in the restructuring exercise being undertaken would be made up of persons who took the VSEP plan “but what we are hearing now is just the opposite.”

The Sugar Manufacturing Company Limited, of which Prem Nandlal is the Chief Executive Officer, had told the media also that some 1,100 people would be re-employed at the Usine Ste Madeleine Factory for the 2004 sugar cane crop which is projected to produce 75,000 tonnes of sugar, and he stressed that only workers with experience would be employed “but this is not the information we are getting back. “We are calling on the Minister of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources, John Rahael, and Prem Nandlal “to clear the air with respect to the individuals who are being employed at the Usine Factory at this time,” Indarsingh said. What has happened to Valley’s promise?” he asked. Indarsingh stressed that from information reaching the Union, “Only persons with PNM Party cards were being hired to work in sugar now. We want to know what the employment statistics are at the moment, especially with the ethnic distribution of those being hired.”

With respect to the Rum Distillers’ Company Limited (formerly Caroni’s rum distillery) now being managed by Anthony Phillip, and which the PNM has evaluated as being worth $1 billion, Indarsingh said, “It is Government’s intention to sell out the rum stock and kill the distillery plant, so that in the final analysis, no one would be re-employed.” Indarsingh explained that in 2002/2003, the operating cost of the distillery was $28 million and total sales were in the vicinity of $28.1 million. Apart from that, several firms were owing the rum distillery huge amounts and the “Corporate Secretary of the Company, Clarence Rambharat, should initiate plans to recover this money as he has those figures on his desk,” Indarsingh said. The new rum company, he added, was deliberately keeping workers out “ by embarking on a strategy to buy neutral spirits from Angostura at $6.30 per litre when the actual price is $5.76.”

Indarsingh said that the Rum Distillers “is in the process of buying aged rum from a source in Panama, with the intention of closing down the distillery at some point in time.” The Union president emphasised the fact that the rum distillery was the one section of Caroni that was profitable to run and it “is a pity that the Government was now making an effort to close it down.” Indarsingh said that the union disagreed with the explanation made by the Ministrry of Agriculture, Lands and Marine Resources yesterday in respect of the final payment to all employees with respect to the VSEP package “but this is not true”. “We still have a number of issues to be decided upon and among them is the matter of employees with unused sick leave and wage negotiations that was referred to the Industrial Court for the period 2002-2004,” the Union President said. Indarsingh predicted that the 2004 sugar cane crop would be disastrous in “that Usine could not produce the 75,000 tonnes of sugar being projected as in their best year, they produced only 54,000 tonnes of sugar. Usine does not have that capacity,” he argued.

Indarsingh said that the Union wrote Prem Nandlal congratulating him on his appointment and seeking a meeting to discuss employment and recruitment practices “but we were surprised that he did not reply to our request. It is a clear indication to us how the sugar wind is now blowing,” Indarsingh said. He stated, however, that his Union would “survive as we would not turn over and die as we have been working on several fronts to represent workers in many industries and so far we have been succeeding.”