Four weeks after samples were taken from the body of murder accused David Leander called `Biscuit’ or David Zammet for toxicology testing, there is still no indication from the police as to when the results will be ready and relatives are already pessimistic about whether the findings will ever be released.
Crime Chief Seelall Persaud when contacted last week told Stabroek News that the samples were still at the police lab and no results had yet been received.
He had said in a previous interview that the force would normally handle toxicology tests as it was within their capacity to do so. However, if the police could not conduct the tests needed then the samples would be sent to external laboratories.
When asked last week about what was causing the delay, Persaud explained that there was only one person who performed these types of tests and this case was not the only one he had to deal with. That person he added also had to attend court sometimes.
A close relative was still infuriated about the man’s death and said that she had no confidence in the force to make any results public.
“We know that there nah gon be no results. We just finish with that… We know how de police dem does operate and we gon lef them to God,” the woman said during a telephone interview with this newspaper.
She said that Leander’s death had came as a great shock to her as they were looking to have him exonerated and get him out of the country so that he could start a new life.
She said that during his last three court appearances, she noticed that he was losing weight rapidly and it was during this time that he informed her of his poor health.
The woman said that he complained of feeling unwell and of being unable to sleep. He had also alleged that at one time he complained to a female medex at the prison but instead of offering a remedy, she had told him to put on his orange suit and run through the prison gates.
The relative repeated that nothing would ever come out of the matter but expressed confidence that “eventually everything will come to light.”
The woman stated too that she and Leander had been very close as he grew up around her. She told this newspaper that he was not guilty of the things of which he had been accused.
She claimed that the 29-year-old started working in Suriname and at the time of the slaying of Minister Satyedeow Sawh, his siblings and security guard, Leander was not in this country.
He was arrested one year seven months after the incident, she said.
His children especially his six-year-old daughter, constantly asked for Leander. “We the family, got to try and mek things right for them. Them children got to grow up without a father.” His youngest child is 2 years old.
On the morning of July 9, Leander was referred to the Georgetown Hospital, where he was treated and returned to the Georgetown Prisons.
Within days he was returned to the institution for medical attention, again after complaints of feeling unwell and was subsequently admitted.
According to reports he was frothing at the mouth and complaining of severe pain. He appeared to have been recovering after some days but suddenly fell into a coma.
His aunt Everlyn Estwick had stated that the doctor who had been attending to Leander and who had informed relatives of Leander’s kidney failure and lapse into a coma never explained what might have led to those developments.
A doctor had reported that Leander suffered a blood clot in one of his feet and as such “they had to burst the bottom of his foot.” Hospital sources subsequently disclosed that Leander had developed gangrene in his foot.
A post mortem examination failed to determine the cause of death.
Leander became known when police issued a wanted bulletin for him and several other high profile wanted men. Police had issued wanted bulletins and offered a $2 million reward for the capture of Leander, Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles, Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins, Orlando Andrews called ‘Bullet’ or ‘Jeffrey’ of Buxton, ‘Cash’ of Buxton; ‘Not Nice’ of Buxton and ‘Sonny’ of Agricola for the murder of Agriculture Minister Satyedeow Sawh, his siblings and security guard.
He was eventually captured during a joint services operation in Buxton that resulted in the deaths of Noel ‘Baby’ James who had shortly before been released from prison after serving a sentence for larceny, and Andrews who was wanted in connection with a number of murders.
Following his capture, he appeared in the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court on November 8, 2007 charged with the murders of Sawh, his brother Rajpat Sawh, his sister Phulmattie Persaud and his security guard Curtis Robertson on April 22, 2006 at La Bonne Intention (LBI).
Charles, who was killed along with notorious criminal Rawlins in a shoot-out with the joint services last August shortly after he escaped from the Sparendaam lock-ups, was also before the court for these murders.
Following the deaths of the two men charged in connection with the crime, the case before the courts has now been closed.
