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Monday, February 17, 2025

No bail for man charged with kidnapping business owner

by

19 days ago
20250129
Shashi Anand Rampersad, kidnapping victim

Shashi Anand Rampersad, kidnapping victim

A man has been de­nied bail af­ter ap­pear­ing in court charged with kid­nap­ping cen­tral busi­ness­man Shashi Anand Ram­per­sad.

Ka­reem Ro­driguez was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter he ap­peared be­fore High Court Mas­ter Am­brose Per­sad-Singh charged with kid­nap­ping for ran­som on Mon­day.

Ram­per­sad, the own­er of Jits Stock Pile, was ab­duct­ed from Pierre Street, Lendore Vil­lage, En­ter­prise, around 1.45 pm on No­vem­ber 21.

The 36-year-old of Lange Park, Ch­agua­nas, was de­liv­er­ing a load of sand for a cus­tomer when he was forced in­to a sil­ver Nis­san Ver­sa at gun­point by two masked men.

His Mit­subishi Can­ter truck was found idling in the open yard of a res­i­dent with the keys in the ig­ni­tion and his cell­phone in­side.

Ro­driguez was ac­cused of un­law­ful­ly seiz­ing and tak­ing away Ram­per­sad with­out his con­sent and of hold­ing him and pre­vent­ing his re­lease.

The of­fence car­ries a max­i­mum penal­ty of life im­pris­on­ment.

In a state­ment short­ly af­ter Ram­per­sad’s ab­duc­tion, Ch­agua­nas East MP Van­dana Mo­hit said that the kid­nap­ping left Ram­per­sad’s com­mu­ni­ty gripped with fear and un­cer­tain­ty.

“This heinous crime has sent shock­waves through­out the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and be­yond,” Mo­hit said.

She al­so ques­tioned what mea­sures were be­ing put in place to ad­dress a per­ceived in­crease in kid­nap­pings.

“What mea­sures are be­ing im­ple­ment­ed to com­bat the scourge of kid­nap­pings that ter­rorise com­mu­ni­ties? What will the au­thor­i­ties do to pre­vent oth­er fam­i­lies from en­dur­ing this night­mare?” she asked.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the po­lice re­cov­ered a de­com­pos­ing body buried in Dibe, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Po­lice sources said homi­cide de­tec­tives sus­pect that the body may be Ram­per­sad’s, but they would await DNA test­ing to make an of­fi­cial de­ter­mi­na­tion.

The suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing in Ro­driguez’s case is sched­uled to com­mence in Oc­to­ber.

Ro­driguez was rep­re­sent­ed by Steven Maw­er.


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