“Justice must be served this time. We want answers,” Vaughn Assanah the son of murdered taxi driver Vibert Assanah told Stabroek News yesterday.
Vibert Assanah, 57, of 40 Ptolemy Street, Melanie Damishana was stabbed to death shortly before 11 pm on Sunday by two men who hired him outside the Georgetown Hospital where he had been operating as a taxi driver for years.
“He wasn’t rich, but he made sure each of us got a good education, would spend his last cent on that,” the man’s son continued.
Saying that he was still shocked at what has happened, the younger Assanah said he personally wanted answers and “I don’t think they [his father’s killers] would want a meeting with me at any point.”
Meanwhile, the man’s daughter Suzanne was having a hard time controlling her tears. She had been crying uncontrollably since learning of her father’s death. His grief-stricken widow declined to speak yesterday at her home where relatives and friends gathered to comfort each other.
The family is shocked that this could have happened to a man who had been working his car for hire for over 15 years, after he left the Guyana Police Force, in which he had been a serving member for a number of years.
Speaking for the family, Vaughn Assanah said they were always apprehensive about the hours his father chose to work, but always trusted God that no harm would come to him. The man preferred to work at night, since the roads were clearer, the place was cooler, and he was moving up in age, his son related. He would leave for work around 6.30 pm and return home between 1 am to 4 am. His hours would fluctuate depending on how the work went, Vaughn stated.
The dead man’s son said he believed the attackers were after his father’s car, which he had only bought recently. He said his father was the kind of person who would retaliate and not give up easily. The man said his father was not one to keep large sums of money on his person or in the car.
The two men, who had hired the driver outside the hospital from where he operated, stopped the car on Bent Street between Hardina and Haley streets where a wound that caused the man’s death was inflicted with a knife.
One of the alleged assailants who was held by police shortly after the incident remains in police custody while the other is still at large. Stabroek News understands that the man, after being questioned intensely, called the name of the other attacker and a search was on to locate him.
A post mortem examination is to be performed tomorrow.
A police press release issued yesterday afternoon said the police are continuing investigations into he matter. The release said that the man in custody was arrested at the GPHC were the police went after receiving information that he was there.