Derek Achong

In­ves­ti­ga­tors in­volved in the probe in­to Dana See­ta­hal's mur­der are said to be al­most fin­ished with their in­ves­ti­ga­tion and may be ready to lay charges by this evening or over the week­end.

Leader of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen Yasin Abu Bakr and vet­er­an mem­ber Has­san Ali were re­leased from po­lice cus­tody on Wednes­day af­ter be­ing de­tained for two days by po­lice for ques­tion­ing.

As Abu Bakr and Has­san have been re­leased, mem­bers of the or­gan­i­sa­tion yes­ter­day turned their at­ten­tion to sev­en mem­bers who re­main de­tained in re­la­tion to See­ta­hal's killing.

Scores of mem­bers of the or­gan­i­sa­tion turned up at the Pi­ar­co Po­lice Sta­tion last night to hold vig­ils where the de­tainees are be­ing kept, in repli­ca­tion of sim­i­lar ac­tion done out­side the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion in Port-of-Spain be­fore the or­gan­i­sa­tion's leader Abu Bakr was re­leased on Wednes­day af­ter­noon.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, a Ja­maat mem­ber said he and oth­er mem­bers or­gan­ised the protest ac­tion be­cause po­lice were with­hold­ing in­for­ma­tion on the de­tainees from their fam­i­lies.

"We not stay­ing qui­et. In this coun­try you have to make noise for the right thing to be done," the man, who asked to re­main uniden­ti­fied said, as he claimed the de­tainees al­ready had been held for 72 hours with­out po­lice in­di­cat­ing whether they will be charged or not.

"We don't know what is go­ing on. One broth­er went to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion to drop clothes for his broth­er and the po­lice in­sult him and run him," the man said.

The de­tainees are Hamid Ali, broth­er of sus­pect­ed gang leader Ra­jaee Ali, one of Ra­jaee's wives Sta­cy Grif­fith, broth­ers Stephen and De­von Cum­mings, Ri­car­do Stew­art, Ke­ston Seales and De­on Pe­ters, who are all mem­bers of the Ja­maat's Cara­po out­post.

Ra­jaee, his broth­er Ish­mael and Ja­maat mem­ber Garett Wise­man have al­so been iden­ti­fied as per­sons of in­ter­est. The three men are on re­mand at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Arou­ca.

The Alis are there af­ter be­ing charged with con­spir­ing to mur­der ra­dio an­nounc­er Ke­vaughn "Ler­bz" Sa­vory in De­cem­ber last year. Wise­man is on re­mand on an un­re­lat­ed charge.

The Ali broth­ers' fa­ther, Has­san, was al­so ar­rest­ed dur­ing the po­lice op­er­a­tion on Mon­day but was freed along with Abu Bakr.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that when they were in­ter­viewed on Wednes­day, they were in­formed of some of the ev­i­dence po­lice had gath­ered in the months fol­low­ing See­ta­hal's as­sas­si­na­tion on May 4, last year.

She was am­bushed and shot dead as she made her way home af­ter a night at the Ma Pau casi­no, Wood­brook.