Rhon­dor Dowlat

"Do you be­lieve in God?" one of Ak­il Thomas' at­tack­ers asked him.

Thomas replied: "Yes."

His at­tack­er con­tin­ued: "...be­cause you are go­ing to die here tonight."

Thomas was then stabbed 13 times–six stabs to the back, two to the chest, two in the arms, two in the neck and one on the right side of his head, close to the tem­ple. One of the stabs punc­tured his lungs.

Ly­ing in his hos­pi­tal bed at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day, Thomas thanked God for life.

"My spir­it man is not bro­ken and I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful to God for life. I be­lieve that I am alive to­day be­cause of God's ex­tra love for me," he said.

Last Sun­day, Thomas turned 26, but his day was very de­press­ing. So he de­cid­ed to ac­cept an in­vi­ta­tion to go out with a male friend he had known on Face­book for over a year.

"I met this guy on Face­book and we be­gan talk­ing but I stopped af­ter he came on a bit sex­u­al­ly ag­gres­sive to­wards me. It was on­ly re­cent­ly I saw him on­line and I said 'Hey, stranger,' to him. It was then we be­gan talk­ing to each oth­er again. The talk then led to him ask­ing me out for a small lime."

Sun­day was Thomas's birth­day but he was spend­ing it alone.

"It was my birth­day and usu­al­ly my friends would plan a big lime for me but this year was dif­fer­ent. I was at home all day.

"It was in the night, he just asked me to go to the beach and any­where there is wa­ter I am very hap­py and he knew this. So I took it as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to go out so I could take my mind off things."

Thomas lost both his par­ents years ago. His fa­ther died af­ter suf­fer­ing a stroke in 2003 and his moth­er died of a heart at­tack in 2010. He was aban­doned by his sib­lings.

Thomas said he be­friend­ed the oth­er man on­line and spoke to him about his life, his likes and dis­likes.

"The truth is, I grav­i­tat­ed to­wards meet­ing this per­son be­cause of the state of mind I was in. He knew a lot about me so when he said we would go to the beach I oblig­ed.

"How­ev­er, while I was dress­ing I be­gan to feel very scep­ti­cal. I should have lis­tened to my ini­tial in­stincts. Look­ing back now as to what took place, I should have stayed at home.

"He kept call­ing me while I was dress­ing so I guess it gave me the more rea­son to go out and re­lax not know­ing what would have hap­pened to me."

At about 8.30 pm he left his east Port-of-Spain home and made his way to the Co­corite Fish­ing De­pot.

"I met the guy and we be­gan talk­ing, just a nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion. Sud­den­ly about five oth­er guys ran out from some bush­es and I dashed in­to the wa­ter and be­gan to swim out. While swim­ming out I re­mem­bered my friend and looked back.

"That was when I saw him stand­ing on the shore with the rest of guys. They were throw­ing stones at me.

"When I re­alised that I was set up, I be­gan to pan­ic. Three of the guys came in­to the wa­ter and swam to­wards me and pulled me out of the wa­ter. They then asked me what I have on me. They took my mon­ey, my phone and my shoes.

"It was at this point I was asked if I be­lieved in God and was told that I am go­ing to die tonight. They be­gan stab­bing me about the body. All that time I was cry­ing out to God. I am not a bad per­son so I was not wor­ried be­cause I kept my mind fo­cused on God. I was at peace."

Even while he slumped to the sand, he re­called: "I could hear the guys telling one of them things. It sound­ed like an ini­ti­a­tion process to join a gang. I lay there bleed­ing from the wounds and to try and save my life I de­cid­ed to play dead.

"This was when the guys stopped deal­ing me stabs. One of them called out to me but I nev­er re­spond­ed. I lay still as though I was dead. This was when they left. When I re­alised that they left I man­aged to make my way to the main road where I slumped on the road­way and was as­sist­ed to the St James Hos­pi­tal by passers­by."

Thomas be­lieves the at­tack was a hate crime as he open­ly be­longs to the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty.

"It is im­por­tant for peo­ple to un­der­stand that re­gard­less of race, colour, so­cial stand­ings, that peo­ple in­tent on do­ing harm to oth­ers would just go ahead and do it. I think gen­er­al­ly peo­ple who have ill-in­ten­tions will prey on mi­nor­i­ty peo­ple, which is eas­i­er," he said.

Thomas warned every­one us­ing so­cial me­dia net­works to be vig­i­lant.

Po­lice at the St James sta­tion yes­ter­day took an of­fi­cial state­ment from Thomas and are pur­su­ing sev­er­al leads in the at­tack.