T&T na­tion­al Doreen Alexan­der, the com­mon-law wife of mur­dered US sol­dier Bal­ram "Ba­lo" Ma­haraj, was sen­tenced on Thurs­day to 20 years in jail for her role in his 2005 kid­nap­ping.A state­ment re­leased yes­ter­day by the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice said Alexan­der, who was ex­tra­dit­ed to the US on March 31, plead­ed guilty on Oc­to­ber 3 to con­spir­a­cy to com­mit hostage-tak­ing.This was a less­er of­fence in­clud­ed un­der count one of the in­dict­ment, which charged con­spir­a­cy to com­mit hostage tak­ing that re­sult­ed in death.

Alexan­der, 47, of Ari­ma, was sen­tenced by US Dis­trict Judge Em­met G Sul­li­van in the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia. Sul­li­van al­so sen­tenced Alexan­der to serve five years of su­per­vised re­lease to fol­low her prison term.Alexan­der was the last charged co-con­spir­a­tor in­volved in the kid­nap­ping of Ma­haraj.T&T na­tion­als Zion Clarke, Kevon De­merieux, Wayne Pierre, Ri­car­do De Four, An­der­son Strak­er, Christo­pher Sealey and Kevin Nixon were all found guilty and have been sen­tenced to life in prison in the US.

The sev­en filed mo­tions af­ter the con­vic­tions, seek­ing a new tri­al or to­tal free­dom.Rus­sell Joseph, Wayne Git­tens and for­mer sol­dier Ja­son Per­ci­val were all state wit­ness­es and a fourth man, David Su­chit, were freed in 2007.Ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments, Alexan­der ini­ti­at­ed the April 2005 kid­nap­ping of Ma­haraj and pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion that al­lowed the kid­nap­pers to iden­ti­fy, lo­cate and track Ma­haraj.

Alexan­der alert­ed the kid­nap­pers to Ma­haraj's vis­its to T&T; gave them in­for­ma­tion on his wealth, which was used to cal­cu­late the ran­som, and re­as­sured the kid­nap­pers they had the right man af­ter the ran­som ne­go­ti­a­tions went awry. Ma­haraj died as a re­sult of the kid­nap­ping.They were ac­cused of hold­ing Ma­haraj hostage, which re­sult­ed in his death.Ma­haraj, 62, a Trinida­di­an, was kid­napped on April 6, 2005, from the Samaan Tree Bar, Aranguez, and de­tained in the San­ta Cruz for­est.

Rel­a­tives re­ceived de­mands for a $3 mil­lion ran­som for his safe re­lease but Ma­haraj died while in cap­tiv­i­ty and no ran­som was paid. His re­mains were found in two con­tain­ers in the San­ta Cruz for­est on Jan­u­ary 8, 2006.