Gail Alexan­der

Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, one of the ac­cused in the Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man mur­der, was killed yes­ter­day as he and two oth­er pris­on­ers staged a brazen mid­day es­cape, shoot­ing their way out of the Port-of-Spain prison on Fred­er­ick Street and mur­der­ing a young po­lice of­fi­cer.

Apart from the guns the pris­on­ers were armed with, po­lice found a grenade out­side the jail fol­low­ing the es­cape.

PC Sher­man May­nard, 27, died in the melee. He is the nephew of Cen­tral Di­vi­sion head Snr Supt John­ny Abra­ham. Po­lice said he was a month short of two years in the ser­vice.

Al­so slight­ly in­jured dur­ing the es­cape was a pris­ons of­fi­cer, ac­cord­ing to DCP Glen Hack­ett.

The high-noon dra­ma in the cap­i­tal sent jit­ters through some cit­i­zens. It oc­curred two days af­ter Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, was de­tained by po­lice for ques­tion­ing on the Dana See­ta­hal, SC, mur­der case and re­leased, and three days be­fore the 25th an­niver­sary of the failed Ju­ly 27, 1990, coup at­tempt.

The two pris­on­ers who es­caped with 42-year-old Mar­tin and who are now on the run are Christo­pher "Mon­ster" Sel­by and Has­san Atwell, who is await­ing ex­tra­di­tion to the Unit­ed States for the 2005 al­leged kid­nap­ping of US cit­i­zen Videsh Mo­han. (See page A5)

Po­lice said Atwell, 41, has been charged with var­i­ous oth­er of­fences, in­clud­ing rob­bery, pos­ses­sion of firearms and sex­u­al as­sault, while Sel­by, 30, is a co-ac­cused in the Naipaul-Cool­man case al­so. Both re­mained at large yes­ter­day. Po­lice said a 43-year-old Princes Town man was held in con­nec­tion with the es­cape.

An is­land­wide man­hunt is on for both in si­mul­ta­ne­ous ex­er­cis­es us­ing air and land re­sources, and at ports, putting T&T on "High" alert. Last night, po­lice bar­ri­cades were up at var­i­ous points in down­town Port-of-Spain, in­clud­ing out­side the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion on St Vin­cent Street.

The trio's dar­ing es­cape oc­curred as gun­shots cut through the city's mid­day bus­tle, when the pris­on­ers shot their way out of the prison, fir­ing on po­lice of­fi­cers who were on du­ty out­side. They then jumped in­to a car and fled.

De­ceased po­lice of­fi­cer May­nard was one of the of­fi­cers on du­ty. Af­ter be­ing shot he un­der­went surgery at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH) but suc­cumbed to the gun­shot wounds.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Carl Al­fon­so and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har were on the scene along­side DCP Hack­ett. Hack­ett said Mar­tin was killed in an ex­change of gun­fire with po­lice in the guard booth at the PoS­GH af­ter he fired on the po­lice. Near Mar­tin's body was a gun and cell­phone.

Fol­low­ing the es­cape, heavy po­lice fire­pow­er and pris­ons of­fi­cers wear­ing bul­let-proof vests cor­doned off the prison area from sur­round­ing city blocks.

Hack­ett said he couldn't con­firm or "dis­con­firm" re­ports that the pris­on­ers had re­ceived the weapons–in­clud­ing two 9 mm guns and the grenade. The pris­on­ers were al­leged­ly giv­en the arms dur­ing a "spe­cial vis­it" ses­sion in the Vis­i­tor's Room of the prison, from which they emerged fir­ing.

Asked about re­ports that the es­capees ob­tained the weapons from peo­ple who came to the prison to see them, Hack­ett said that was not his in­for­ma­tion. He couldn't say how the men es­caped, he said, but po­lice were comb­ing the cap­i­tal and en­vi­rons to re­cap­ture Sel­by and Atwell. Hack­ett said a team had im­me­di­ate­ly been es­tab­lished to probe the es­cape.

Apart from in­ter­view­ing peo­ple, Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors were al­ready on the job re­triev­ing ev­i­dence. K-9 dogs were brought in around 2.20 pm and be­gan sniff­ing ve­hi­cles and ar­eas out­side the prison. Cy­ber crime techs were al­so tak­ing pos­ses­sion of the CCTV footage in and around the prison.

Just 90 min­utes be­fore the prison break oc­curred, es­capee Atwell, at 11 am, had been post­ing "tweets" on so­cial me­dia, the last end­ing with "...Death is on­ly an in­vi­ta­tion to meet him (Al­lah) in per­son..."

Hack­ett said he had no in­for­ma­tion that the men were plan­ning an es­cape, "but I had con­firmed in­for­ma­tion that in some one of the pris­ons there may have been an es­cape plan.

"Six weeks ago I there­fore placed at each prison po­lice of­fi­cers to be sta­tioned there 24-7 . It is be­cause of this they were able to stymie the es­cape bid re­sult­ing in Mar­tin's fa­tal in­juries."

Hack­ett said a pos­si­ble link to the ar­rest of cer­tain mem­bers of a Mus­lim group ear­li­er this week would be ex­plored. He couldn't con­firm claims that two po­lice sta­tions were shot at yes­ter­day. (See page A7)

Yes­ter­day's prison break dra­ma pan­icked down­town pedes­tri­ans and mo­torists, who fled from the area, caus­ing mas­sive traf­fic jams as they di­vert­ed away from the blocks sur­round­ing the prison.

Groups of pris­ons of­fi­cers ar­riv­ing to take up their shift had to re­main out­side af­ter the com­pound was locked down. Some mem­bers of the pub­lic watched the ac­tion from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion's Scott House en­try on Fred­er­ick Street.

Pic­tures of Mar­tin's blood­ied, life­less body al­so sur­faced on so­cial me­dia short­ly af­ter he was killed. Po­lice said a fe­male se­cu­ri­ty guard at­tached to the PoS­GH was al­so in­jured dur­ing yes­ter­day's in­ci­dent.

Es­capees urged to sur­ren­der

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Carl Al­fon­so last night called on fugi­tives Christo­pher Sel­by and Has­san Atwell to make things easy on them­selves and give up.

He al­so urged the fam­i­lies of both to urge the men to give them­selves up as "fail­ure to do so means the law en­force­ment per­son­nel will find them and that could turn out to be quite un­pleas­ant."

Po­lice asked mem­bers of the pub­lic to be on the look­out for the men, who were deemed to be armed and dan­ger­ous, and to con­tact the po­lice with in­for­ma­tion at 999, 555, or any po­lice sta­tion.

Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams yes­ter­day ex­pressed great sad­ness over the mur­der of PC Sher­man May­nard, who was killed when the three pris­on­ers shot their way out of the Fred­er­ick Street prison.

On an­oth­er is­sue, DCP Glen Hack­ett con­firmed he would be mak­ing a state­ment soon fol­low­ing re­ports that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions had re­cent­ly spo­ken to him on the Dana See­ta­hal, SC, mur­der case.

Po­lice this week in­ter­viewed Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr and Cara­po mosque Imam Has­san Ali on the See­ta­hal is­sue. Sev­er­al oth­er mem­bers were al­so de­tained, in­clud­ing one of the wives of Ali's son Ra­jaee. The lat­ter, his broth­er Ish­mael and Ja­maat mem­ber Garett Wise­man are on re­mand at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison. The Alis are charged with con­spir­ing to mur­der ra­dio an­nounc­er Ke­vaughn "Ler­bz" Sa­vory in De­cem­ber 2014. Wise­man is on re­mand on an un­re­lat­ed charge.

Al­lan "Scan­ny" Mar­tin, of Diego Mar­tin, was among nine oth­ers charged with the mur­der of Vin­dra Naipaul-Cool­man. He was charged with Shevonne and De­von Pe­ters, Kei­da Gar­cia, broth­ers Earl and Mar­lon Trim­ing­ham, Ronald Arm­strong, An­to­nio Charles, Joel Ogiste, and Lyn­don James. It is al­leged that they mur­dered Naipaul-Cool­man some­time be­tween De­cem­ber 18, 2006, and Jan­u­ary 12, 2007, at Up­per La Puer­ta Road, Diego Mar­tin.