Dad: Cops ignore death threats

Ashook Ramdial’s daughters, Sangeeta, six and Sarah, three, were killed when arsonists set fire to their home at Uquire Road, Freeport on April 14, 2009.

Ramdial escaped the fire just moments before he jumped out of his bedroom window and hid in the bushes.

From his vantage point in the tall grass, the tallest of which reached him to his chest, he saw Soman Rampersad, Junior John, and brothers Shiva, Ryan and Vishan Bijnauth armed with guns, cutlasses and kegs before his house went up in fire.

The six men — brothers Shiva, Ryan and Vishan Bajnauth and their half-brother Soman Rampersad and friends Junior John and Kenny Mohammed — are on trial before Justice Maria Wilson in the Port-of-Spain Fifth Criminal Court charged with killing Sangeeta, and Sarah by setting fire to the family’s home..

The children’s mother, Geeta Singh, and relative Richard Ramdial, were shot during the attack.

Yesterday, he claimed he had made several reports to the police of a longstanding land dispute with the men to the Freeport Police Station, including an incident in 2002 in which he was shot in the hand.

He said police arrested the men only after the children’s death.

Ramdial claimed the police refusal to act on his reports was because one of the men did construction work on a senior police officer’s house.

“I went to meet he (the police officer) and he hide from me. They (police) run me from the station,” Ramdial said. The injuries he suffered in the previous attack were shown to the jury during his testimony.

Defence counsel, Vernon De Lima, SC, accused Ramdial of falsely accusing his clients, as he questioned his claim that he witnessed the attack on his home while hiding in the bushes.

De Lima said: “I put to you that your entire evidence on what happened that night is a lie because you were not there.”

“No, everything I say is the truth. I took an oath in this court,” Ramdial said.

De Lima also accused Ramdial of visiting Richard in hospital, after the incident, to convince him to give evidence against the six men even though he (Richard) was not able to initially identify his attackers.

“I was under police protection at the time so, they would know if I do that,” Ramdial said.

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"Dad: Cops ignore death threats"

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