A Diamond taxi driver was robbed of his car and a quantity of cash by two men on Saturday night.
Keith Christopher Keizer, 28, was attacked by the two men, one of whom was a passenger in his car for almost an hour, in the vicinity of Conversation Tree, East Coast Demerara (ECD). The men held him at knife point, hit him in the face and left him with his hands and feet tied-up in an empty stretch of property located along the ECD Public Road.
The perpetrators escaped with the silver grey 212 Toyota Carina that he was driving at the time, his cellular phone and some cash he had on his person. The stolen motorcar, HB 6231, is owned by Earl Forthe and was left in care of his sister, Janella Forthe.
Speaking with Stabroek News yesterday afternoon, at the Diamond New Housing Scheme, East Bank Demerara home of Janella Forthe, Keizer said that he worked as a taxi driver in the housing scheme. Some time around 7pm on Saturday, he recounted, he dropped off a carload of passengers from the housing scheme to the Diamond Public Road and began driving towards the hire car park. It was while driving in that direction that a man shouted to him and he stopped. “He asked me how much to go by the arch in Alexander Village and I told him $1500 and he jumped in the taxi,” Keizer told this newspaper. “While we were driving to the arch, he told me that he was going to the mosque there to drop off some certificates.”
When they arrived at the Alexander Village Mosque, Keizer further related, the man made a brief phone call and then told him that they had to go to another mosque located at Mandela Avenue. At the Mandela Avenue location, the man recalled, his passenger got out the car and spoke with a man there. “When he come back in the car again, he told me that he was going to the area around Conversation Tree,” Keizer said.
The man said he then drove along Sheriff Street, stopped at the GuyOil gas station along the way to purchase gasoline and then continued the journey to Conversation Tree, ECD. Keizer said that he took the Railway Embankment Road and then turned on to Conversation Tree. When he reached there, he came into contact with a male driving an “Allion” motorcar at the traffic light at the junction near Conversation Tree. “Now, we were moving west on the public road and then this man tell me stop anywhere around by where this fenced off, empty property is,” Keizer said, “and when I stop he ask me how much for the drop and I tell he $5000 and he start counting off the money.”
While the man counted the money, Keizer said, a man came from behind and placed a knife at his neck. The man with the knife, he recalled, ordered him to drive into a “ditch” and into the dark area in the fenced off property. The man with the knife, Keizer said, then jumped from the backseat, slammed a fist into his face and hauled him from the vehicle. “They start search me and take away the money I had and they ask me for my cell phone and I told them it was in the car. The man who had the knife then started to strap up my and hands and my foot and duct-tape my mouth,” he said.
The men then made off with the vehicle and left him lying in the dark, Keizer said. He could not tell in what direction the men drove. “The day before [Friday] I bought a pen knife and put it in my jeans pocket and it was the pen knife I manage to get out from my pocket to cut the strap on my foot and run out to the public road,” Keizer said.
A couple eventually stopped to listen to his story, the man said, and transported him to the Sparendaam Police Station. It was there, Keizer said, that he reported the matter. However, when he asked police to visit the scene, Keizer said he was told that their vehicle had no gas and they could not go.
The man said that he returned to the police station yesterday but was told that when the investigation officer had anything to tell him he would be contacted. “I am not satisfied with how the police handling this matter at all…is almost like they don’t have anytime with me and what happen,” Keizer said.
