Fran­cis Joseph

The Unit­ed States Fed­er­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (FBI) is mak­ing moves to ex­tra­dite Doreen Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty, the for­mer com­mon-law wife of mur­dered US cit­i­zen, Bal­ram "Ba­lo" Ma­haraj.

Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty was one of three peo­ple who es­caped ex­tra­di­tion in 2006 when the FBI came to T&T and whisked away 12 Trinida­di­ans for tri­al at the E Bar­nett Per­ry­man Fed­er­al Court in Wash­ing­ton DC. The oth­er two were Spe­cial Forces sol­dier Ri­car­do Steven­son and San­ta Cruz res­i­dent Ken­neth Pierre. Sev­en of the Trinida­di­ans were found guilty on Ju­ly 31, and will be sen­tenced on Feb­ru­ary 12, next year. Four plead­ed guilty and tes­ti­fied for the US gov­ern­ment, while David Su­chit took his chances be­fore the ju­ry and was ac­quit­ted.

Two weeks ago, FBI of­fi­cers from the US came to Trinidad, and went to the Women's Prison at Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca. At the prison, they met with Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty, and ac­cord­ing to Guardian sources, they of­fered the woman a deal, to vol­un­tar­i­ly go with them to the US, and take a guilty plea in re­turn for a re­duced sen­tence. The Guardian learnt that Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty, 43, re­fused the of­fer and de­cid­ed to stay in Trinidad. As a re­sult, the FBI agents have re­turned to their base and all sys­tems are now be­ing put in place to make a for­mal re­quest for Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty and Steven­son.

The de­ci­sion to re­quest Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty to go to the US was made af­ter her moth­er, In­ez Alexan­der, gave ev­i­dence for the pros­e­cu­tion on May 28. Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty had an af­fair dur­ing which she had a son, Di­nesh, for Ma­haraj. They were al­so en­gaged in a cus­tody bat­tle for Di­nesh, now nine. Ma­haraj, 62, a Trinida­di­an, was kid­napped at the Samaan Tree Bar, Aran­quez, on April 6, 2005. A $3-mil­lion ran­som was de­mand­ed for his safe re­lease. Ma­haraj died in the camp­site in San­ta Cruz. No mon­ey was ever paid, but Ma­haraj's re­mains were found in two con­tain­ers in the San­ta Cruz for­est on Jan­u­ary 8, 2006.

Alexan­der-Du­ri­ty, Steven­son and Ken­neth Pierre, al­though they were nev­er sought by the FBI be­fore, were charged in Trinidad for Ma­haraj's mur­der. They were com­mit­ted to stand tri­al by Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls on De­cem­ber 19, 2006. The sev­en Trinida­di­ans con­vict­ed in the US for tak­ing Ma­haraj hostage were Kevin "Sha­ka" Nixon; An­der­son "Gyp­sy's Son" Strak­er; Christo­pher "Boyie" Sealey, Wayne "Nin­ja" Pierre; Cpl Ri­car­do De Four; Zion Clarke; and Kevon "Ketchit" De­merieux. They face a manda­to­ry life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pa­role. Four oth­ers plead­ed guilty and tes­ti­fied for the US gov­ern­ment. They are al­so await­ing sen­tenc­ing. Dis­graced sol­dier Ja­son Per­ci­val en­tered a guilty plea on No­vem­ber 16, 2007. On April 15, 2009, Sgt Leon Nurse, 44, of Mor­vant, plead­ed guilty to charges of hostage-tak­ing re­sult­ing in death and con­spir­a­cy to com­mit hostage-tak­ing re­sult­ing in death.

Al­so plead­ing guilty to the of­fences were Rus­sel Joseph, al­so known as "Saucy," and Win­ston Git­tens. Joseph plead­ed guilty on Ju­ly 26, 2006, while Git­tens plead­ed guilty on Feb­ru­ary 27, 2007.