Justice Jainarayan Singh Jr yesterday granted bail in the sum of $100,000 each to Barry Datram and Michael Baharally, the two men held after a drug-linked kidnapping of a woman and her daughter last Saturday, but up to press time, they were still in custody at the Brickdam Police Station.
This newspaper understands that they were released and rearrested moments after Justice Singh handed down the bail ruling.
The men’s attorney Vic Puran made the successful High Court bid one day after Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards had granted an extension order allowing the police to continue to hold Datram, whose daughter and wife were kidnapped by two Venezuelan men, one of whom was later shot dead. Puran moved against Justice Cummings-Edwards’s order, which would have expired today, arguing that it infringed his clients’ rights.
Puran said last night that even as the order was being made, the two men were spirited away from the High Court although he had asked the inspector in charge at the court for the men to be handed over to the High Court Marshal, since he had suspected that that was the action the police would have taken. He said the men were taken to the Brickdam Police Station and he made several visits to the station and duly served the judge’s order on officers there.
He said an officer by the name of Mr Primo, who was very courteous to him, made several calls to different functionaries. One of the calls was to a Mr Jessimy, a police officer stationed on the West Coast, who, according to Primo, when asked how he could have placed the two men in the Brickdam lock-ups without informing anyone in authority, told him that the DPP’s Chambers had instructed them to release the men and re-arrest them.
An angry Puran said the men were rearrested in connection with the same offences – abduction and trafficking in narcotics – and this does not happen in a “democratic society”. The lawyer said the police were duly represented in the High Court by Attorney-General Doodnauth Singh, and they had no right to keep the men in custody.
He said what the police could have done if they had additional information on the men, was to prepare a separate affidavit to be seen by the judge only who would have made his decision after taking the additional information into consideration.
Kidnapping
Meanwhile Dataram’s pregnant wife, Sheleza, recounted her “horrifying” experience when the two foreign men, who were masked and armed, grabbed her last Saturday.
According to the woman, her husband went out for a few drinks on Friday night and when he returned to their Ruimzeight Gardens, West Coast Demerara home around 2 am on Saturday he called out for her to open the door for him.
She said her husband stepped into the kitchen and she was about to close the door, when the two men pushed their way in. She said the men could not speak English and they used signs to indicate that they wanted money and jewellery.
She said the men took her and her husband upstairs where they handed over the money and jewellery before taking them back downstairs and tying them up and ordering them to lie on the ground. She said all this time the men were talking on their cellular phones constantly. She said the men spent about one and a half hours in their home, demanding more money and jewellery and talking on their cellular phones.
After this, Sheleza said, they went back upstairs and took her sleeping three-year-old daughter out of her bed, wrapped her in a sheet and brought her downstairs. She said they signalled their intention to leave with the child and she started to beg and cry for them to take her with them.
Eventually the men relented, untied her and took her out into the yard where her “212” dark blue car was parked. She said they instructed her to take the wheel, while one of them put on a cap belonging to her husband and sat in the front passenger seat. She said she was told not to stop if she saw any police officers along the way.
Sheleza said she drove all the way to Parika, and was instructed to stop at a dam. They all got out in the rain, and one of the men went back onto the roadway and stopped a taxi, which they entered and were all taken to Bushy Park. At Bushy Park, she said, they entered a boat, which had a captain and a lad acting as the “bowman”. The woman said she held her daughter and they sailed in virtual silence to the Pomeroon River area, where they stopped at Baharally’s gas station.
There, she said, one of the men initially pretended that she was his girlfriend and they were taken into the businessman’s house. She said one of the men remained there with her, while the other one went out with the boat captain.
She said when the man returned with another man, the one who was left to guard her informed them that he suspected the police had been alerted.
The third man, who apparently was not a foreigner, was then left there with her guard, while the kidnapper, who is now in custody, and the boat captain left again. However, she said, the police soon arrived with that kidnapper and there was a shoot-out with the two men. The foreign-speaking kidnapper was killed while the other man escaped.
Last evening the woman lamented the length of time her husband, whom she said did nothing wrong, was being kept in custody. While the police have said that the entire affair could be drug related the woman said her husband was not involved in anything illegal.
She and Baharally’s wife, who was also in front of the station, said their husbands were innocent and should be released. Sheleza said she felt if she were not pregnant she would also be in police custody. She said she was afraid that persons might attempt to kidnap them again.
US connection
Datram and Baharally were detained since Saturday. While they were in custody at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Eve Leary an official of the US Embassy in Georgetown interviewed Datram. Puran told Stabroek News yesterday that the US official offered advice to his client, who is an American citizen. Stabroek News was told that the US has been keeping an eye on the case given that it has drug links.
A relative of Datram told this newspaper yesterday at the High Court that the 29-year-old had lived in the US for a while, during which time he obtained naturalised citizenship.
However, Datram returned to Guyana several years ago and has not returned. He is said to be operating a large farm in the Cuyuni district.
Acting Commissioner of Police Henry Greene had confirmed on Wednesday that the force received a request from the US embassy to interview Datram, whom the mission said was a citizen of the US.
However, Greene said, Datram has denied being a citizen of that country.
In the gun battle between the police and the kidnappers hours after the woman and her daughter were taken hostage, Venezuelan Raul Antonio Munoz Centeno was shot and killed while another national of the South American country, Jesus Oliva Ortega Manriquez was captured. Police are said to be looking for a third suspect also believed to be a Venezuelan.
It was reported that Datram and Sheleza handed over US$16,000; $800,000 and jewellery to the value of $40,000.
Meanwhile, up to yesterday no one had come forward to identify the body of the dead Venezuelan, although efforts were made through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Venezuelan Embassy in Georgetown to make contact with Caracas so that the dead could be claimed.
Police said that documents found on him bore the name that was released. Stabroek News was told that the man had been seen in Guyana before and he apparently knew Barry Datram.
