Fran­cis Joseph

A woman is be­lieved to be be­hind the death of re­put­ed drug deal­er Mer­lin "Cud­joe" Al­lam­by, who was am­bushed and shot when he went to in­ves­ti­gate the killing of his two friends on the Aranguez Main Road. Tues­day marks one year since Al­lam­by, 40, was killed in mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances. It was a mo­bile phone call from a close fe­male as­so­ciate that led Al­lam­by to his death.

Who was Mer­lin Al­lam­by? He was de­scribed as a Robin Hood on Laven­tille Road, San Juan. He was the own­er of Crab Con­nec­tion Foot­ball team, a squad which cam­paigned in the Su­per League. Since Al­lam­by's death, the team dis­in­te­grat­ed and most of its mem­bers went to oth­er teams. Al­lam­by was al­so a dance­hall pro­mot­er, known for bring­ing down top Ja­maica reg­gae per­form­ers. He was proud of his achieve­ments, but peo­ple in the un­der­world felt oth­er­wise. Al­lam­by rode shot­gun with un­der­world fig­ures and sus­pect­ed drug deal­ers. He was al­ways sur­round­ed by his body­guards. No one knew for sure if they were armed. Al­lam­by felt com­fort­able around these guards. He loved the life of be­ing called "boss." He brought out a fam­i­ly unit in Crab Con­nec­tion. The play­ers showed re­spect for their own­er.

At Laven­tille Road, Al­lam­by was well loved. Just as Dole Chadee did, Al­lam­by would as­sist needy peo­ple, but it came at a cost. No stranger could have ven­tured close to his premis­es with­out his knowl­edge. Those he as­sist­ed be­came his look­outs, ei­ther for the po­lice or oth­er crim­i­nals. He was well pro­tect­ed and he went nowhere alone. So, it was with great shock that Al­lam­by went to his death all alone. In­ves­ti­ga­tors claimed he was lured to his death by some­one he knew...and for a big­ger price.

Set­ting the trap

It was short­ly af­ter mid­night on Ju­ly 21, 2008, when Raf­fick "Puna" Mo­hammed, 59, and his com­mon-law wife Rosan­na Seemu­n­gal were stand­ing out­side a pop­u­lar bar on Aran­quez Main Road, when a man rode up to them on a bi­cy­cle and fired sev­er­al shots. Al­so stand­ing there was bar own­er Pradeep Ram­nar­ine. All three peo­ple were shot in the head. Mo­hammed and Seemu­n­gal, who had been to­geth­er for 19 years died on the spot. Ram­nar­ine was rushed to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex for treat­ment for a head wound. Po­lice list­ed Mo­hammed and Seemu­n­gal as mar­ket ven­dors. But Mo­hammed came with a his­to­ry. He was one of four peo­ple charged with the mur­der of Port-of-Spain jew­eller Surindra Maraj on De­cem­ber 6, 1986, at Gray Street, St Clair.

Maraj was kid­napped three months pri­or and four men were charged. But he was gunned down while the case was pend­ing. Mo­hammed, Im­ram Ali, Roger Hug­gins and Alie Mo­hammed were charged with the mur­der. They were sen­tenced to death, but be­cause the ju­ry was tak­en to To­ba­go for the East­er week­end and re­port­ed­ly min­gled with mem­bers of the pub­lic, a re­tri­al was or­dered. They were found guilty again, but three of them–Mo­hammed, Ali and Hug­gins–were ac­quit­ted. They were lat­er killed. Po­lice said Mo­hammed was heav­i­ly in­volved in drugs and was the un­cle of El So­cor­ro drug deal­er Shaz­ard "Ted­dy Mice" Khan, who was gunned down dur­ing Hosay cel­e­bra­tions in St James.

The Killing

While the bod­ies of Mo­hammed and Seemu­n­gal lay on the ground, a woman tele­phoned Al­lam­by, a good friend of the dead peo­ple, and in­formed him of what had hap­pened. With no time to call his guards, Al­lam­by jumped in­to his ve­hi­cle and drove from San Juan to Aranguez to see his friends. He nev­er sus­pect­ed it was a trap. Here was a close con­fi­dante who called him and he went speed­ing. Around 3.30 am, Al­lam­by was stand­ing at the side of the road with rel­a­tives await­ing the ar­rival of the dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer. A black car pulled up in front of them and sev­er­al men alight­ed and opened fire on Al­lam­by and oth­ers.

Al­lam­by, a fa­ther of 11, was shot sev­er­al times in the head and died on the spot. A po­lice­man who ar­rived on the scene, de­scribed this killing as a "clever ex­e­cu­tion." A woman who was at the scene said Al­lam­by tried to pro­tect her when the shoot­ing start­ed. "All I know, he ran be­hind the Pra­do and I saw him fall...Just be­fore, when I saw the car and heard the gun­shots, he pushed my head down to the ground so I would not get hurt," she said. Po­lice feared that the killing of Al­lam­by would cause reprisals in and out of his area. But one year lat­er, that nev­er hap­pened. What hap­pened was a brazen at­tack out­side a bar at Mara­cas/St Joseph, on Au­gust 1, 2008, in which three peo­ple were killed. Among them were moth­er of three, Karen Dhanoolal, and Ryan Charles, a drug ac­cused, who po­lice said was a sus­pect in Al­lam­by's killing. Po­lice said that Charles was one of the men who killed Al­lam­by, and that peo­ple con­nect­ed to the San Juan Robin Hood, took re­venge for that killing. One year lat­er, Al­lam­by's mur­der re­mains un­solved. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion on this killing is asked to con­tact CrimeStop­pers at 800-TIPS.