KIDNAPPED FOR ‘COKE’

AFTER being savagely beaten, slashed with a razor blade and tortured, a 28-year-old father of two was kidnapped from his Moruga home by armed men on Tuesday night.

Police believe the kidnapping to be linked to the recent washing ashore of millions of dollars in cocaine at several beaches in Moruga, Manzanilla and Mayaro. Police sources said they believe Avalon Wendell Paul, a labourer, was kidnapped by the same gunmen who last week stormed his Samuel Trace, Basse Terre, Moruga home searching for cocaine, which the gunmen thought Paul had taken from Gran Chemin beach. Following the search, police said Paul went into hiding by relatives in La Romaine. He was snatched mere hours after returning home on Tuesday evening from his self-imposed hiding. The kidnapping comes in the wake of several large packets of cocaine washing ashore on beaches. At least four unidentified bodies have also washed ashore, leading police to believe there may have been a major gun-battle on the sea with cocaine smugglers being killed and cocaine thrown overboard.

Paul’s common-law-wife, Salisha Mohammed, 23, who witnessed the brutal attack on her husband, told Newsday yesterday that around 10.45 pm on Tuesday, she had just returned home after checking on her two children — Jameel, two, and Jamal, 11 months — of whom were sleeping by their godmother’s house a short distance away. “I was standing in the bedroom when four masked men, two with guns and one with a cutlass, came in. One of them placed a gun by my neck and said, ‘Don’t move.’ My husband was lying on the bed and the other gunman put his weapon to my husband’s neck,” a worried-looking Mohammed related to the Newsday yesterday. She said the men kept asking, “Where is the cocaine, where is the cocaine,” and started ransacking the bedroom. At this point, Mohammed said, she started to panic. “I told my husband that if he had it (the cocaine), give it to them. But he said he did not have any drugs.” She told Newsday that the intruders then took a razor blade and started slashing Paul about his face. They then planassed him (beat him with the flat side of cutlass) and also beat him with a gunbutt. When the beating stopped, the men tied Paul with rope and took Mohammed out of the house and told her, “Run for your life.”

Mohammed told Newsday that the men then forced her bleeding husband into a waiting car, which sped off. She is now fearing the worst. Mohammed also lambasted the police’s response, claiming that despite several calls to the Moruga police station, the officers came very late. “I called the police a lot of times and they never came (right away). They came nearly two hours later.” Mohammed denied that Paul was hiding from the gunmen, saying that he went by his relatives in La Romaine to get a “little end to do.” She also denied that he had any knowledge about the missing cocaine. However, Hayden Thomas, Paul’s cousin, told Newsday that Paul was “running scared for his life.” Thomas said he (Thomas) was at Paul’s house last week when the four gunmen came looking for Paul and the cocaine. At the time, Thomas said, Paul was not present. “The gunmen said that he (Paul) got cocaine which washed ashore on the beach and that is what they wanted. After that incident, he (Paul) was scared for his life,” Thomas said. Residents told Newsday that they had been seeing strange vehicles and persons in the area since the cocaine washed ashore. One woman said that a “strange” white car was parked near Paul’s home for almost three days last week and when they called the police, no officers came. The female villager said she and others were living in fear and she was calling for more police patrols in the area. “This is a serious situation and the police are not doing anything,” she said.  Visiting the scene of the kidnapping on Tuesday was a party of officers from the Moruga police station including Sgt Rodriguez and PC Suphal. Investigations are continuing.