Police are no closer to finding the killers of businessman Frank Persaud but his wife has expressed confidence in the police to give her some closure.
So far no clues have surfaced to clarify whether customs officers might have been involved in the July 31 shooting.
Contacted recently Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell gave all assurances that ranks were working round the clock looking for a breakthrough. “The investigation is still on. The file is still open,” he stressed.
Brumell told this newspaper no arrests have been made and persons have been questioned. “There is nothing concrete so far”, he said.
Persaud, 44, a father of one of Lot 1, Area L, First Street, Bel Air Village was stabbed and suffocated by three men who posed as customs officers. According to reports, sometime after 8 pm, the three men purporting to be Guyana Revenue Authority officers visited the man’s home under the pretext of carrying out a search of his property.
His wife Bibi who answered the door was subdued by one of the men and the man’s accomplices took Persaud to the back of the home and proceeded to duct-tape and stab him about his body. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital. A post mortem several days later revealed that he suffocated and also sustained blunt trauma.
Quizzed about this aspect of the investigation, Brumell noted that GRA Commissioner General Khurshid Sattaur had already ruled out his employees. Sattaur had told this newspaper that employees do not work after 4.30pm and business persons should be aware of this fact.
Brumell noted further that as long as investigators get leads they will follow up while noting that to date, the motive for the killing is unclear.
Police in a press release, had stated that the men visited the home earlier in the day. When they returned on Tuesday night they demanded to check goods that were in a storage bond and were accompanied by Persaud to the bond. The men, the release said, later called out to Bibi, and told her that her husband was calling her. After entering the bond with her two-year-old daughter they were held and tied up with duct tape during which she observed her husband lying on the ground covered with a piece of plastic.
Police reported that the men entered the home and ransacked the building, escaping with a laptop computer, a quantity of jewellery, a quantity of goods from the storage bond and an undisclosed sum of cash.
Persaud operated a stall in the Stabroek Market area and a relative noted that he would import goods, mainly confectionery from Brazil.
‘Still in shock’
When Stabroek News visited Bibi recently her face was puffy from the constant crying. She said that she is still trying to come to grips with the crime which had now left her to care for her two year old daughter single handed.
“I am waiting on the police to investigate and I have put all my confidence in them,” she said.
She said that she is waiting on the police to contact her with new information adding that she never got the impression that something was bothering her husband prior to the killing.
“I am praying that at some point I will get some action. And that I will get justice for my husband,” the woman said.
Meanwhile she said that she has no choice but to compose herself for the sake of her child who still called for “dada.”
Though more than two weeks have passed since the incident, Bibi said she is unable to look at the garage where her husband died. At the time of this newspaper‘s visit it was locked and as Bibi spoke to this newspaper she backed the door.
Several persons in the area that this newspaper spoke with did not recall any suspicious activities prior to the incident. They only recalled a canter truck driving out of the narrow street before an alarm was raised. This was apparently the killers’ getaway vehicle.
Over the years, the number of unsolved murders has been piling up. Relatives have time and time again expressed frustration at the pace of investigations and the fact that usually not much is achieved.
