Police sergeant in robbery…

- Cops

Ryan Kailass and Vijay Sirpaul, the two young men who were allegedly attacked and robbed by a police sergeant, his brother and another man, say that their attackers had stopped earlier in the evening enquiring about a popular businessman.

Relating their ordeal to this newspaper, Kailass and Sirpaul said that they were hanging out at a shop not far from their Unity, East Bank Essequibo home when three men in a beige coloured AT 192 approached them.

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According to Sirpaul, one of the men then asked for directions to a popular sawmill owner in the area. The man said he refused to divulge any information, only saying they didn’t know who the businessman was.
“We know everybody in this area so when we see them we know that dem ain’t from this area so we tell dem that we ain’t know way de man live.”
Sirpaul said they then went back to their conversation when the car returned and held them at gunpoint asking them to hand over their valuables.

Sirpaul said he was relieved of his mobile phone and $10,000 in cash, while his friend, Ryan Kailass was relieved of a silver chain, $12,000 in cash and his cellular phone. The men then jumped back into their car and fled.
Sirpaul said that shortly after the incident a police patrol was passing the area and they informed them of the robbery.
“We tell a police patrol who was now going out to duty and he call de station and tell dem set up a road block…same time we going out to de road block we see de car at the road block.”
The men said that they immediately identified their attackers to the police and the men were taken into police custody.
Sirpaul added that at the roadblock he noticed one of the men throwing an object out of the car window.
“When de police search in de grass corner they find a gun.”

According to a police release on the incident, about 19:30 hours on Friday three men who were armed with a handgun and a knife held up Kailall and Sirpaul and took away two cell phones, a silver chain and $22,000.00 and drove away.
A report was made to the police who responded promptly and intercepted the motorcar along the Parika Access Road. Two masked men were seen in the back seat of the vehicle along with the driver who was found to be a Sergeant of Police, the report said.
The two masked men were placed into the police vehicle and the driver was observed throwing something into the bushes. The object was retrieved by the police patrol ranks and found to be a toy gun.
As a rank was about to enter the motorcar with the intention of escorting the vehicle to the station, the driver drove away and subsequently returned to the station with the vehicle bearing number plate PJJ 1957, the report added. He was arrested.
In a twist of tales, defense counsel, Mortimer Codette, has since provided this newspaper with a written statement from the police sergeant who has been implicated in the incident. According to the statement, Codette’s client, Ragendra Major, Police Sergeant 17774, sought to clear his name. He stated that he was attending a function in Georgetown when he received a call from his younger brother asking to be picked up in Parika since he hadn’t any money to journey back to the city.
Major, in his statement, claimed that he left Georgetown in motorcar PJJ1957 and when he arrived at Parika he met his brother, Jomo Major, and a friend.
The sergeant claimed that he was stopped and searched and nothing was found on him but nevertheless asked to visit the Parika Police Station where the victims failed to identify any of them as the people who robbed them.