Midfielder, Dwayen Ali of the Western Tigers Football club was on Friday night “accidently” shot in the leg by the club’s President, former Magistrate Gordon Gilhuys.
According to the police, the incident occurred around 23.30 hours on Friday night at Hibiscus Street and Mandela Avenue.
Ali, 31, of Garnett Street, is now a patient of the Georgetown Public Hospital. He told this newspaper yesterday that a fight had broken out between Gilhuys and another player “and I went and part them and I feel something stinging…” Ali says that he was not aware of the circumstances under which the gun went off.
Ali said that the team was returning from a game in Linden when the incident occurred. With the shot entering his left shin, Ali said he will have to “wait and see” if he will be able to play football again. Ali has been playing with the Western Tigers for some four years now he said.
Meanwhile, Gilhuys had turned himself in at the East Ruimveldt Police Outpost. Yesterday when this newspaper found the attorney-at-law he was giving his statement to a police officer. He told this newspaper that the shooting was “a lil accident.”
After stating that the team was returning from a game Gilhuys went on to point out that he was in custody. He said that since he was a licensed firearm holder he was at the station to lodge his weapon and give a statement of what had occurred.
This is not the first time that the former policeman has been involved in a shooting incident. Four years ago, Gilhuys had shot a policeman in the chest on Woolford Avenue.
Thirty-three year old Mark George of Lot 2033 Humming Bird Street, Festival City was shot while on police patrol on Friday June 27, 2008. A police release had stated that around 11.15 pm a mobile police patrol observed a heavily tinted vehicle, PJJ 6832 parked along Woolford Avenue, Georgetown.
The police ranks stopped and approached the vehicle with a view to making checks, the police said, adding that ranks called on the driver of the vehicle “to turn on the lights of the vehicle and this resulted in a verbal exchange during which it is alleged that the driver discharged rounds at the police hitting Corporal 18352 George in his abdomen.”
According to the statement the police released at the time, the police returned fire hitting the vehicle, but the driver managed to drive away.
Gilhuys turned himself in the following day at the Brickdam Police Station accompanied by his lawyer where he was taken into custody and his firearm lodged. He was subsequently released on station bail. Gilhuys had contended that the officers had never identified themselves and it was the police who had first opened fire which prompted him to retaliate in like manner. At the time of the shooting, the ranks were in an unmarked police vehicle but were dressed in navy blue police uniforms.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was consulted for advice on the matter, but Gilhuys was never
