Cops: Sevilla fire — ‘an inside job’

THE interrogation of two watchmen who witnessed Caroni’s Brechin Castle fire on Saturday morning, has revealed that a window was deliberately left open to allow the arsonists into the Sevilla Club building.

Police said yesterday that they were certain that the fire was an “inside job”, the motive for which investigators yesterday told Newsday, has begun to surface. Today, experts from the Forensic Sciences Centre and the Government’s Electrical Inspectorate, will visit the scene to carry out further investigations. It was around 1 am on Saturday when the Industrial relations department offices, located at Sevilla Club, went up in smoke following an explosion. Two watchmen were discovered by police tied up and according to their reports, were apparently beaten. Staff at the offices, which also housed the company’s Human Resources Department, have been processing VSEP applications from daily and monthly-paid employees, the deadline for which is tomorrow.

The company is yet to respond officially to queries about the apparent destruction of those VSEP applications in the fire. A VSEP plan is being initiated by Government in its bid to restructure the company’s production of sugar which involves the doing away with some 9,000 employees to facilitate closure of one of the company’s two factories. Police said yesterday that they interrogated the watchmen at weekend. They said that they have now discovered that the watchmen were not tied up with duct tape or wire, but with a jersey. They also learned that minutes before the offices were set alight, a cane field a short distance away at Esperance Village, Phoenix Park, was set ablaze. Police said that their investigations have led them to believe that the arsonists committed the act, then proceeded to Brechin Castle, where they doused the offices with a flamable substance. The reasons for the cane fire was aimed at diverting attention of Caroni Estate police to their real objective.

Police have found containers at both at the scene of the cane fire and at Sevilla Club. They have since cordoned both areas which were being keep under guard by both Caroni and regular police. Snr Supt Philip Carmona and Sgt Corbett are spearheading investigations.