RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Res­i­dents of Fyz­abad are urg­ing the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate whether the mur­der of Syr­i­an busi­ness­man Muath Nas­sar is linked to ex­tor­tion.

Nas­sar, 49, of Brent­wood, Ch­agua­nas, the pro­pri­etor of Syr­i­ana Mid­dle East Foods, was shot dead yes­ter­day morn­ing while con­duct­ing sales at his food out­let on South­ern Main Road, Fyz­abad.

A res­i­dent, who spoke anony­mous­ly, said that in re­cent times, ex­tor­tion­ists have been tar­get­ing busi­ness own­ers in the Fyz­abad com­mu­ni­ty.

“I know of two busi­ness peo­ple who they came to and de­mand­ed mon­ey. They said if they do not pay up, they will go af­ter their fam­i­ly. I do not know if this mur­der was re­lat­ed to ex­tor­tion but we want the po­lice to in­ves­ti­gate it,” the res­i­dent said.

The res­i­dent said he was at home when he heard four gun­shots.

“I stayed in­side. Peo­ple were stand­ing out­side the Val­ley Bar and ap­par­ent­ly, Mr Nas­sar saw the men com­ing for them. There is a Span­ish girl who works for them and she ran across the street when the gun­men came in,” he said.

The res­i­dent said Nas­sar’s killing ap­peared to be a hit.

He de­scribed Nas­sar as a soft-spo­ken, hard­work­ing busi­ness­man.

“Crime is ridicu­lous now. Peo­ple can­not even op­er­ate their busi­ness, they are com­ing with guns and they telling you which one of your fam­i­ly will die if you do not pay up,” the res­i­dent said.

He point­ed out that a gas sta­tion own­er in the dis­trict has been spend­ing all his prof­its to pay for se­cu­ri­ty af­ter he was threat­ened by ex­tor­tion­ists.

“You can­not tell me they spend­ing so much mon­ey on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and in­no­cent busi­ness peo­ple have to face this. How come the po­lice don’t do any­thing about the ex­tor­tion?” the res­i­dent com­plained.

He not­ed that Nas­sar had been op­er­at­ing the food out­let with his cousin for over four years.

Mean­while, po­lice said they are still work­ing on a mo­tive for the killing.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said around 1.30 am, of­fi­cers from the South West­ern Task Force re­spond­ed to re­ports of a shoot­ing near Val­ley Bar which is next to Syr­i­ana Mid­dle East Foods.

Nas­sar and his son, So­haib, were con­duct­ing sales when they saw two armed men ap­proach­ing from the di­rec­tion of the Fyz­abad Health Cen­tre.

The sus­pects—one about 6’2”, dressed in an or­ange cov­er­all, and the oth­er about 5’6”, wear­ing a black-and-white striped jer­sey—ran to­wards the busi­ness.

One sus­pect fired at Nas­sar, strik­ing him in the head be­fore both fled on foot.

Nas­sar’s body was found in­side the es­tab­lish­ment.

First re­spon­ders se­cured the scene while Homi­cide Re­gion 3 of­fi­cers, led by PC Ramd­ha­nee, processed the area. No ev­i­dence of val­ue was re­trieved.

Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Archee pro­nounced Nas­sar dead and or­dered his body re­moved to the San Fer­nan­do mor­tu­ary.

Po­lice are ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic for in­for­ma­tion.