RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A Venezue­lan na­tion­al was killed on Sat­ur­day night at his home in Mc Bean Vil­lage in Cou­va.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, around 8 pm, mo­ments af­ter Joel Fer­nan­dez pulled up in the yard of his home which is lo­cat­ed in a side road oblique­ly op­po­site Old Mac, gun­men alight­ed a black Au­di and opened fire on him. Po­lice said Fer­nan­dez died on the scene. Po­lice be­lieve that the men in the Au­di fol­lowed Fer­nan­dez’s ve­hi­cle wait­ing for the op­por­tune time to kill him.

Two of Fer­nan­dez’s friends who went to the scene were too dis­traught to talk but said that they were very sad­dened and shocked by the news.

“We don’t know why they kill him but he worked very hard here in Trinidad. This is just ter­ri­ble. Sad. Very sad. I’m shocked,” Fer­nan­dez’s friend, who did not want to dis­close his name, said.

Po­lice said Fer­nan­dez along with a woman were well known in the area as they sold brand name sneak­ers and slip­pers un­der a man­go tree op­po­site the Sa­van­nah along the Old South­ern Main Road, Mc Bean Vil­lage.

When Guardian Me­dia re­turned to the scene on Sun­day, the gate to the house was locked. There was no one at the house.

How­ev­er, neigh­bours, who wished to re­main mum said that they were “pret­ty shak­en up” over the in­ci­dent.

One neigh­bour who re­quest­ed strict anonymi­ty said: “Here is usu­al­ly a qui­et lit­tle res­i­den­tial area. We re­al shock to hear what hap­pened to the Span­ish man. Things re­al bad in this coun­try.”

A po­lice source al­leged that some Venezue­lan na­tion­als are be­ing fol­lowed by their en­e­mies from Venezuela to Trinidad and, ac­cord­ing to the source, are “deal­ing with them.”

How­ev­er, in­ves­ti­gat­ing po­lice of­fi­cers are yet to de­ter­mine a mo­tive for Fer­nan­dez’s mur­der.

CLICK FOR MORE NEWS