The step­fa­ther of nine-year-old Aneil­ia But­ler, who died in a fire in 2022, has been charged with her mur­der.

Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent Ju­man Ali Sa­ha­dath, 35, ap­peared be­fore a Mas­ter of the High Court, charged with the mur­der of the nine-year-old spe­cial needs child, which oc­curred on Feb­ru­ary 23, 2022.

The TTPS, in a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day, said Sa­ha­dath was charged with the mur­der­when he ap­peared in court on March 5.

But­ler was at her Beetham Gar­dens home with her fam­i­ly when smoke was seen em­a­nat­ing from the house. The fam­i­ly was evac­u­at­ed, but at­tempts to reach the room the nine-year-old vic­tim was oc­cu­py­ing proved fu­tile, due to the fire and smoke.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vices were no­ti­fied and the blaze was ex­tin­guished.

The child’s body was dis­cov­ered in the room.

Po­lice said one male sus­pect was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau In­tel­li­gence Unit in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent on Feb­ru­ary 28 this year.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions were su­per­vised by ASP (Ag) Ram­jag, W/In­sp Grant, In­sp (Ag) Ram­sumair and PC Subi­ah, all of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HBI), Re­gion One, with the as­sis­tance of oth­er agen­cies. Sa­ha­dath was charged by Sgt Matthews, of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion, fol­low­ing ad­vice from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard on March 4.

And Homi­cide of­fi­cers cracked an­oth­er case when a 20-year-old man ap­peared be­fore a Mas­ter of the High Court charged with the mur­der of David Stan­ley Gre­goir, which oc­curred on Feb­ru­ary 15, this year.

Po­lice said Akeem Si­mon of Bagatelle, Diego Mar­tin, was charged with the of­fence when he ap­peared in court on Mon­day.

Po­lice said Gre­goir, 29, of Sa­van­nah Road, Diego Mar­tin, was in an SUV parked along Al­ber­to Street, Wood­brook, around 2 in the morn­ing when he had re­port­ed­ly got in­to an ar­gu­ment with peo­ple he knew.

Of­fi­cers said Gre­goir was stabbed by a man and tried to run out of the ve­hi­cle to safe­ty.

How­ev­er, he was chased down the street and stabbed re­peat­ed­ly about the body. The man then ran off.

Of­fi­cers re­spond­ed to dis­tress calls from on­look­ers and took Gre­goir to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he died.

Po­lice said one male sus­pect was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau In­tel­li­gence Unit on March 3 in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions were su­per­vised by ASP (Ag) Ram­jag, W/In­sp Grant, In­sp (Ag) Ram­sumair and PC Subi­ah, all of Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HBI), Re­gion One, with the as­sis­tance of var­i­ous agen­cies.

Si­mon was charged with the of­fence by PC Ho­sein, al­so of the HBI Re­gion One, on March 7.