. . .The man who died twice

Clint Huggins was undoubtedly the most sensational State witness of the last 30 years. He was even more high profile than the colourful Parmessar, the man whose testimony sent notorious killers Abdul Malik and Stanley Abbott to their deaths at the end of a hangman’s rope in the 1970s.

Huggins was a key witness in another era, a time of drug criminals and chilling mass murders by ruthless gangs. His was the era of men such as Dole Chadee, feared as the “boss” and with good reason for Chadee allowed no one to stand in his way. Huggins’ fate was sealed when he became one of two key witnesses whose testimony would send Chadee and eight of his henchmen to the gallows in 1999. But as Christ once said, those who live by the sword die by the sword, and Huggins met his end in a gruesome killing orchestrated by Chadee. For the last nine years the name Clint Huggins has been in the news. On Thursday of last week the final chapter in the saga was put to rest — three men including two of his cousins were sentenced to death for his murder.
Who was Clint Huggins?

Clint Huggins was a Special Reserve Policeman attached to the Sangre Grande Police Station in the early 1990s. But while he wore the police uniform with pride sitting in the charge-room and taking reports, there was a dark side to this man. He was a member of the Dole Chadee gang. Dole Chadee, the police knew, was heavily involved in trafficking cocaine and killings, more sophisticated and cunning than what is taking place today in areas such as Laventille. There were other policemen on Chadee’s payroll which allowed the gang to flourish for years. But there was something about Huggins that attracted the attention of Senior Superintendent Mervyn Ghatt, Head of the Homicide Bureau. He targeted Huggins for information about the murder of four members of the Baboolal family of Williamsville who were gunned down mafia style on January 10, 1994.

The Williamsville killings bore the stamp of a ruthless boss and the police believed it was no one else but Chadee. But, such fear surrounded Chadee that the police kept encountering a solid wall of silence. With nowhere else to turn, Ghatt moved on Huggins and finally in May 1994 Huggins broke his silence and gave the police some vital information. This led to a massive weekend round-up of the Chadee gang and the last weekend of freedom that they would have. It was not the first time that Chadee had been charged with murder. In fact, he had faced three murder charges but on each occasion had been acquitted because the witnesses were killed. This time the police decided to take no chances and the main State witness — Clint Huggins — was placed in protective custody at the Regiment Barracks at Teteron where, surrounded by top security, it was thought that Huggins would be safe.

In the meantime, Chadee and nine members of his gang were committed to stand trial for the Williamsville murders. The country was preparing for the biggest murder trial of all time. Chadee, of course, was not without resources and used everything legal to delay the trial, including filing a constitutional motion and claiming that the pre-trial publicity would prevent him getting a fair trial. When that failed, a plan was hatched to get rid of Huggins. A soldier, Lance Corporal Eric Williams was approached. He had easy access to Huggins in the safe house at Teteron and it would be easy for him to poison Huggins. Chadee, however, picked the wrong man because Williams immediately informed his seniors about the plan. A sting operation was put in place by the authorities to trap the would-be killer of Huggins and it became the infamous hoax of 1995, in which the media was unwittingly used by the National Security Ministry and the police to fool the would-be killers into believing that Huggins had indeed been poisoned and that their plan had succeeded.

I remember well that morning when Superintendent Phillip Browne, the then Head of the Homicide Bureau rang me to say that Huggins was dead, that he had been poisoned and that the post-mortem was about to start at the Forensic Sciences Centre. I was startled and wondered how this could have happened in a safe house. I proceeded to the Forensic Sciences Centre where I saw Huggins’ father, Neville Huggins, emerge from inside the building, having duly identified the “body”. He was in tears and being comforted by soldiers but he was quickly led away before I could ask a question. Forensic Pathologist Dr Ramnath Chandulal, who was always the easiest man to contact, was suddenly unavailable when I tried to reach him to find out about the “post-mortem”.

That evening the next act in what was a staged drama — except we didn’t know it at the time — was going down in the Brian Lara Promenade. There, the police carried out a sting operation and arrested suspects who had in their possession one million dollars, that was the payment for poisoning Huggins.  Their plan, having been achieved, the police were now going to come clean with the media. The following day, the then Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier Ralph Brown and former Commissioner of Police Jules Bernard held a joint news conference at Defence Force Headquar-ters to say that they had fooled the media so that they could capture the person behind the poison plot. Clint Huggins was very much alive. And while reporters were being briefed by Brown, editors had been summoned by the National Security Minister Russell Huggins who admitted the hoax, insisting that the end had justified the means.

Three suspects were arrested on the Brian Lara Promenade and charged with conspiracy to kill a State witness but only two, Felicia Constantine, 29, of Valencia, and Ronald Williams, 25, a regiment private were found guilty. The third was acquitted. On Tuesday, February 14, 1996, I received a call from someone identifying himself as Clint Huggins. He was frustrated, he said, at the confinement of the State house. He complained that he was not getting what he had been promised. He wanted to talk so I agreed to meet him at the Regiment post in Chaguaramas. He came walking with cell phone in hand and we drove to the Shoppes Of Maraval where, for the next 45 minutes, we discussed Chadee and the gang. I informed him that I could not report his story because of the pending court trial but I promised him that one day I would get the chance. Huggins was a very frightened man. Although he was in protective custody he was still afraid of the “boss”. “Imagine Mr Chadee paid one million to poison me. I couldn’t believe it. No one since I was around dared to stand up to him,” Huggins said.

Huggins knew what he was talking about. He had been recruited by Joey Ramiah, Chadee’s chief lieutenant and had been involved with the gang in several jobs including the murder of the Williamsville family. Why did he get involved in this gang, I asked? “I wanted money,” he said. “I had a young wife and we were planning to have children. I never planned to be a full-time member of the gang, but once you get involved you could not leave alive. It was either you stayed or you were left like ‘Mice’ Baboolal.” Huggins said the killings increased all the time. He was part of the gang for two years before the Baboolal murders. Huggins continued, “To tell you how brutal that man Chadee was, he killed his own family, Wally Chadee. There was some dispute over money and cocaine and just so Wally get killed and the man did not even have a heart boy.” Wally was shot and killed in Piparo on September 11, 1993.

Huggins said when the gang received Chadee’s instructions to kill ‘Mice’ Baboolal, he never anticipated that the entire Baboolal family would be killed. “I hear Joey with that talk when we reach in the house. I felt so sick I just wanted to get it over with. That bloodshed really affected me and that is why I decided to talk,” Huggins said. After the interview, I dropped Huggins off in St James not knowing that it would be the last time I would see him alive. On February 20, 1996, Huggins’ body was found hanging out of a car on the Uriah Butler Highway, Mt Hope. According to police reports, he had been shot, stabbed and his body partially burnt. But who would believe the story after the great hoax. The public needed hard evidence. A photograph showing his body battered, shot and burnt was handed exclusively to Newsday.

This time Clint Huggins was really dead and here was the evidence. Newsday obliged by printing the photograph, of course the entire front page much to the envy of media competitors. He really had been killed this time. He had run away from the safe house to enjoy Carnival and the alcohol spoke when he was seen at a bar in Sangre Grande. He was lured away from the bar and brutally murdered. Chadee had put out a $3M bounty on Huggins’ head, but before Huggins was killed he had given evidence in the preliminary inquiry of the Williamsville murder and his deposition was admitted into evidence at the trial. Chadee and his gang were tried and convicted through Huggins’ evidence and the evidence of another gang member Levi Morris, who had also participated in the Williamsville murder but had turned State witness.

In September 1996, Chadee and the gang were convicted and sentenced to death being eventually hanged in batches of three on June 4, 5 and 6 of 1999. But before Chadee’s execution, the men who were killing for Chadee, realising that no money was forthcoming for the jobs that they had done, kidnapped Chadee’s brother Thackoor Boodram on December 20, 1997 and demanded a $5M ransom. Their demands were ignored and Thackoor’s head was found in a whiskey box at the Caroni cremation site. The rest of his body was never found. Ten men, including some members of the Chadee gang, were convicted and sentenced to death for Thackoor’s murder. After years of investigation, the police finally charged three persons for Huggins’ death, his cousins Leslie and Arnold Huggins and Junior “Heads” Phillip. A fourth man was wanted but he fled to Canada. Canada is not prepared to execute that suspect unless TT give an undertaking that the death penalty will not be carried out on him. After weeks of trial, Madame Justice Alice Soo Hon passed the death sentence on the three on Thursday last after they were found guilty by a jury. It was the final chapter in the story of Clint Huggins, a policeman turned gang-member and killer, a man who died twice.