Trinidad: Man who fled Syria to escape violence fatally shot in Tobago

(Trinidad Guardian) The rel­a­tives of To­ba­go gy­ro ven­dor Elias Dab­bourah, 30, are de­mand­ing jus­tice fol­low­ing his death on Sat­ur­day.

Dab­bourah was shot in the head with a hand­gun around 3.30 am on Mon­day when ban­dits at­tempt­ed to rob him at Crown Point, To­ba­go. He was rushed to the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal where he re­mained in a co­matose state and was breath­ing with the help of a res­pi­ra­tor. Fam­i­ly mem­bers flew in a doc­tor from Trinidad on Fri­day night who lat­er de­clared Elias brain dead.

 
An emo­tion­al Dany Lay­oun, 31, spokesman for the fam­i­ly, said all they want­ed was jus­tice. Lay­oun said the per­pe­tra­tors must pay for their das­tard­ly act.

Na­dine Hack­ett of the Po­lice Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Unit said peo­ple have been de­tained in con­nec­tion with the mur­der but no charges have yet been laid.

Lay­oun said the week had been trag­ic for fam­i­ly mem­bers. He said Dab­bourah’s wife, Sal­ly Hourani, 25, re­mains trau­ma­tised. He said Sal­ly had been at the bed­side of her hus­band since he was shot. He said when Elias passed away around 11.40 am, she be­came hys­ter­i­cal.

Lay­oun said Elias’s par­ents who live in Homs, Syr­ia, had been des­per­ate­ly try­ing to trav­el to Trinidad to see their son be­fore the worst hap­pened. The el­der­ly cou­ple made their way from Syr­ia to Lebanon last week where they got a visa for T&T from the T&T Hon­orary Con­sulate in Tripoli, Lebanon, head­ed by Ho­n­ourary Con­sul Jean Georges Haidar. How­ev­er, they re­main in Beruit where they are await­ing con­nect­ing flights. Lay­oun said they may ar­rive on Fri­day in T&T. Lay­oun said fam­i­ly mem­bers, in­clud­ing Tony, the broth­er of the de­ceased, were still de­lib­er­at­ing how to break the trag­ic news to his par­ents.

 
Lay­oun said when the shoot­ing took place the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad had of­fered to as­sist Dab­bourah with any­thing he re­quired. Lay­oun said, how­ev­er, Dab­bourah and his wife’s rel­a­tives, the Houra­nis, were able to take care of all their needs. Lay­oun said the fam­i­ly was ap­pre­cia­tive of the of­fer made by the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty.

Lay­oun said Dab­boura left war-torn Syr­ia with his broth­er Tony 12 years ago to seek a bet­ter life in T&T and es­cape the vi­o­lence rav­aging Syr­ia. He mar­ried Sal­ly Hourani five years ago. The cou­ple left Trinidad in 2007 and moved to To­ba­go with the in­ten­tion of get­ting away from the vi­o­lence erupt­ing in Trinidad. Lay­oun said arrange­ments would be made to have the fu­ner­al and bur­ial take place in To­ba­go where Hourani can vis­it the grave of the man she loved.

Mean­while, Shirley Cooke, the VP of the Crown Point Com­mu­ni­ty Part­ner­ship As­so­ci­a­tion, said more po­lice pa­trols are need­ed in the Crown Point area at all times—es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing peak hours and when busi­ness­es are clos­ing. Cooke said the as­so­ci­a­tion was al­so con­cerned about the down­time with CCTV cam­eras op­er­at­ed by the law en­force­ment agen­cies. She said when the CCTV sys­tems mal­func­tion, a con­sid­er­able length of time is tak­en to have the sys­tem re­boot­ed.

To­ba­go Homi­cide Bu­reau is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Any­one with in­for­ma­tion can con­tact 800-TIPS, 555 or the near­est Po­lice Sta­tion.