The Samaan Tree Bar in Aranguez where Balram ‘Balo’ Maharaj was kidnapped on April 6, 2005.

Bar owner Zyroon Gajadhar told a Washington jury how she witnessed the kidnapping of her long time friend, Balram ‘Balo’ Maharaj, from the Samaan Tree Bar, on April 6, 2005.

Gajadhar, 61, said two men with guns invaded the bar, where about 30 patrons were drinking. They bundled him into a car and sped off. She never saw Balo again. Gajadhar gave evidence before Judge John Bates in the Washington Federal Court on May 28 in the trial of seven Trinidadians who were charged with taking Balo hostage. They were found guilty on July 31 and will be sentenced on February 12, 2010. Gajadhar has four children, including her son, Anand, who now runs the Samaan Tree Bar, situated at the corner of King and Park Streets, Aranguez. He has been running the bar for 13 years. Before that, his mother ran the business. The family, Gajadhar added, has run the business for the past 30 years. She knew a man called Alladin John. They went to school together. She was five when she first met Balo. She could not remember when he changed his name, but she knew him by the nickname, Balo.
She said there came a time when she stopped seeing Balo, because he went to the US to live. Everytime he came to Trinidad, he would visit the bar. That was about three to four times a year, Gajadhar added.

The witness added, “Around 6.30 pm on April 6, 2005, I was at the bar, there were about 30 people there. Balo was there having a beer with some friends. They were sitting on the chair at the table. That table was to the front of the bar. He was there for about half an hour. “He did not appear to be intoxicated. While Balo was drinking, I came out to the front of the bar, and I lean on the gate, looking at my daughter and her son on the wheelchair go home. I could have stretched my hand and Balo could have hold me. “While I was standing there, looking at my children going home, this tall, dark negro fellow walked towards the bin in front of the bar. When he reached by the bin, he pulled out a gun. When I saw the gun, I was scared. I got frightened. I hide my face. I started to bawl.”

Q: Were you able to see through your hands when you held them up like that?
A: Yeah.
Q: What did the man with the gun do?
A: He then pulled a gun out and walked towards where I was standing, and the rest of the people, and said, “don’t move.”
Q: Where was the gun pointed when he said, ‘don’t move’?
A: He was pointing towards this way where I was.
Q: So, it was pointed at you?
A: Yeah. He was standing there towards me, another one coming from the other side of the street, into the bar on the other side of the gate, and come towards where Balo was. That person had a gun. He had on a big red Rasta hat, red, green and yellow. He said to Balo, “Is you we come for.
“Balo did nothing. Then the both of them grab Balo, and while grabbing Balo, he hold on to the chair. And they pull him out of the gate, the bar and into the road, the other one signal to come this way.”
Q: Which one signalled the car to come?
A: The one pointing the gun towards me. When the car drove towards the front of the bar, they both hold Balo, pull him up from the bar, he was holding on to the chair, and one of them hit him. When they reached by the car, he was still holding on to the chair.

“They bundled him into the car. They push him in the car, then one of them run around the car, open the door and sit in there, and the other one went on the other side of the car. “Balo was in the back seat in the middle of two men. They drove off. When they came into the bar, the 30 people were made to lie on the ground. Some were hiding behind the wall. “My daughter and sons were on the ground in front of the bar, they were hiding. All that took a few seconds, they didn’t stay long at all. When they left, I called the police.” Gajadhar said the police came and then “we (my husband, my son and his wife and I) went to Balo’s mom.

I then went home. I got sick and they rushed me to the hospital. I am a heart patient and I couldn’t breathe. I stayed there for two days. I was aware that Balo carried medication in his pocket. When I saw him on April 6, he did not appear to be sick. After he was taken away, I never saw him again. “There was media attention after he was kidnapped, in the Express, and the Guardian, the radio and television. Even a photograph of the medicine that Balo needed when he was held hostage, was published in the Guardian. “After Balo was kidnapped, they had it on the Guardian,” Gajadhar added.

• TOMORROW: FBI negotiator gives her story