A for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller was one of the two sus­pects killed by po­lice in a rob­bery at Bound­ary Road in San Juan yes­ter­day.

Akeem Ben­jamin, al­so known as Bat­tery, rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go as a de­fend­er. He al­so played with lo­cal foot­ball clubs such as W Con­nec­tion, Cen­tral FC and most re­cent­ly San Juan Jabloteh – where he won sev­er­al do­mes­tic ti­tles with the club. A third sus­pect was al­so held.

Ben­jamin lived at Burke Ter­race, Barataria.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 12.20 pm, mem­bers of North East­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force, among them PC Ball, PC An­drews and WPC Lei­ba, re­spond­ed to a re­port that three ban­dits were on the com­pound of Fla­vorite Foods. On ar­rival, the of­fi­cers saw a man jump­ing a fence on the west­ern side of the build­ing. The re­port said the of­fi­cers drove to­wards the El So­cor­ro area to check the scene. The po­lice saw two men run­ning and chased them.

The men ran in­to a room on the west­ern side of the build­ing.The po­lice en­tered the room and the sus­pects re­port­ed­ly drew guns. The of­fi­cers fired sev­er­al shots, hit­ting the sus­pects. The po­lice sub­se­quent­ly seized two guns –a pis­tol and a re­volver.

The wound­ed sus­pects were tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope, where they died. A third man, of Laven­tille, was de­tained

Al­so vis­it­ing the scene were ASP Par­ri­man, In­sp Bharath and Sgt Mar­tin.

Af­ter news of his death went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia, T&T Sport Di­ary ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly: “Con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly and friends of for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er Akeem ‘Bat­tery’ Ben­jamin who passed away ear­li­er to­day (Wednes­day).”

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