An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

A ran­som de­mand has been re­ceived for the safe re­lease of miss­ing Caribbean Air­lines pi­lot Daniel Kawall.

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that the de­mand reached rel­a­tives yes­ter­day, though sources de­clined to dis­close the amount be­ing asked.

Kawall, 59, of Palm Road, North Val­sayn, was last seen and heard from on Sep­tem­ber 3. Rel­a­tives re­port­ed him miss­ing af­ter he failed to re­turn home, along with his gold Toy­ota Hilux, which was lat­er found aban­doned along Holo­lo Road, Cas­cade.

A se­nior po­lice of­fi­cial said the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is be­ing pur­sued as­sid­u­ous­ly but de­clined to pro­vide fur­ther de­tails.

Res­i­dents in the vicin­i­ty where Kawall’s ve­hi­cle was ini­tial­ly spot­ted re­port­ed­ly con­tact­ed po­lice to no­ti­fy them that it had been parked along an em­bank­ment overnight on Wednes­day. Law­men re­port­ed­ly failed to at­tend the area prompt­ly, and when they did, ex­pressed sur­prise that the ve­hi­cle had been re­moved.

Ex­ten­sive search­es were con­duct­ed by the Hunters Search and Res­cue team, led by Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat, on Fri­day, but nei­ther Kawall nor the truck were lo­cat­ed.

Mean­while, the search for miss­ing busi­ness­man Im­raz “Clubs” Ali con­tin­ued in Fe­lic­i­ty yes­ter­day as rel­a­tives and friends combed the area in hopes of lo­cat­ing him.

Cap­tain Val­lence Ramb­harat of the Hunters Search and Res­cue team joined the ef­fort, con­duct­ing ex­ten­sive search­es in heav­i­ly forest­ed ar­eas be­tween 10 am and 6 pm.

Ali, 60, of Char­lieville, was last seen on Thurs­day. The fa­ther of three is the for­mer own­er of the Lazy Lizard on Rod­ney Road, En­deav­our, which he re­cent­ly sold. He al­so has in­ter­ests in Tri­ni Riv­er Lime, Matu­ra.

Ac­cord­ing to rel­a­tives, Ali re­port­ed­ly sold a car on the day he went miss­ing and asked the buy­er to drop him off in Bam­boo, where he al­leged­ly went to view oth­er ve­hi­cles for sale. When he failed to re­turn home, fam­i­ly mem­bers filed a miss­ing per­son’s re­port.

Rel­a­tives al­so re­port­ed re­ceiv­ing a call from Ali’s cell phone around 2 am on Fri­day, dur­ing which he was heard scream­ing be­fore the call was abrupt­ly ter­mi­nat­ed. He has not been heard from since.

At­tor­ney Odai Ramis­c­hand, a close friend and le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Ali, made a heart­felt pub­lic ap­peal for his safe re­turn via Face­book. He wrote: “I want to make this clear to all and sundry. Im­ran Ali is my client and best friend. He and I live like broth­ers. I have all his le­gal doc­u­ments. Tri­ni Riv­er Lime is my prop­er­ty, but I gave Im­raz to use and nev­er took a cent from him.

“Can­not go in­to de­tails. Who­ev­er has cus­tody of Im­raz, please do not harm him. He is the best hu­man be­ing on earth. I know who is be­hind this. I just want to warn you. If any harm be­falls Im­raz, you all can no longer live in this coun­try. He came to see me a month ago and told me every­thing.”