Second man charged with J’Ouvert murder

A sec­ond Diego Mar­tin man has been charged with the mur­der of 19-year-old Jay­den Rouff, who was fa­tal­ly stabbed dur­ing J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions in Port of Spain ear­li­er this year.

Malachi Fras­er, 22, of Bagatelle Road, ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Va­lene Guer­ra-Abra­ham in the Port of Spain High Court on June 29, charged with Rouff's mur­der. The mat­ter was post­poned to Ju­ly 16.

Rouff, of East Dry Riv­er, Port of Spain, was tak­ing part in J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions on Feb­ru­ary 16 when he was ap­proached by a group of men who stabbed him sev­er­al times about the body. He was tak­en to hos­pi­tal, where he died.

Po­lice said ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions by of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (HBI), Re­gion One, led to Fras­er be­ing charged fol­low­ing ad­vice from As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions An­ju Bho­la-Mc Quan on June 17. One oth­er man had pre­vi­ous­ly been charged in con­nec­tion with the killing.

Fras­er is al­so be­ing held un­der a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der is­sued on April 28 un­der the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions, 2026. Ac­cord­ing to the or­der, au­thor­i­ties have iden­ti­fied him as a mem­ber of the Bagatelle Or­gan­ised Crime Group, which they al­lege is in­volved in house­break­ing, armed rob­beries, home in­va­sions, mo­tor ve­hi­cle thefts, shoot­ings and mur­der.

The de­ten­tion or­der fur­ther al­leges Fras­er act­ed as a stash man and look­out dur­ing rob­beries and that he and oth­er mem­bers of the group in­tend­ed to es­ca­late armed rob­beries, home in­va­sions and ve­hi­cle thefts us­ing firearms in the Bagatelle area and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. The or­der says his pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion was nec­es­sary to pre­vent him from act­ing in a man­ner prej­u­di­cial to pub­lic safe­ty.