Alexander mourns friend killed in domestic shooting in Vistabella

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has ex­pressed shock and sad­ness over the killing of busi­ness­man Steve Ghany Ju­nior, re­veal­ing that he had spent time with him just days be­fore his death.

Speak­ing with re­porters at the of­fi­cial han­dover cer­e­mo­ny at the Pe­nal Fire Head­quar­ters on Wednes­day, Alexan­der said he met Ghany over the week­end at a ri­fle range, where they en­gaged in recre­ation­al shoot­ing.

“Yeah, he was a friend of mine. Very sad… I nev­er ex­pect­ed this out­come that he would be dead,” the min­is­ter said. “We went on the range, took a lit­tle sweat, and he came to­geth­er with an­oth­er per­son. So yeah, we met him.”

Ghany was killed in what in­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieve to be a do­mes­tic-re­lat­ed in­ci­dent. Alexan­der not­ed that the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the shoot­ing re­main un­clear and are now the sub­ject of a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Cir­cum­stances still look sketchy… in­ves­ti­ga­tors will de­ter­mine ex­act­ly what took place there,” he said, of­fer­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly. “I hope the good Lord bless his soul, and that the fam­i­ly will be able to live again af­ter this in­ci­dent.”

The min­is­ter said Ghany nev­er spoke to him about any per­son­al is­sues.

“Lis­ten, we try to keep fam­i­ly mat­ters per­son­al, you know what I mean? And I re­spect him for that. Had I known, prob­a­bly I would have tried to tell him oth­er­wise, but I did not.”

Alexan­der used the in­ci­dent to high­light what he de­scribed as a wor­ry­ing trend of do­mes­tic-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence.

“It’s sad when it reach­es to that stage where fam­i­lies are reach­ing to that ex­tent,” he said, urg­ing cit­i­zens to re­solve con­flicts be­fore they es­ca­late. “There are things some­times—mis­un­der­stand­ings be­tween peo­ple—and when you re­alise that, you fix it. It doesn’t have to reach to this.”

He stressed that stronger fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships are key to pre­vent­ing crime, call­ing on par­ents to take a more ac­tive role in rais­ing chil­dren.

“The par­ent is the foun­da­tion from where every­thing comes from. You must go back there to start,” he said, an­nounc­ing that a se­ries of par­ent­ing work­shops will be launched this week as part of a broad­er crime pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy.

Alexan­der added that while mur­ders of­ten dom­i­nate pub­lic con­cern, not all killings stem from or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“If you break down the mur­ders… this will go down as a mur­der, but what is it re­al­ly? Do­mes­tic-re­lat­ed,” he said, ap­peal­ing to the pub­lic to “hold faith” as the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues its an­ti-crime ef­forts.

Ad­dress­ing con­cerns from the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty about ris­ing crime, the min­is­ter ac­knowl­edged that some busi­ness own­ers feel forced to close op­er­a­tions but em­pha­sised that tack­ling crime is a long-term process.

“You can’t get up one morn­ing and crime is gone. Every­thing is a process and that process takes time,” he said, en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to share in­for­ma­tion with law en­force­ment.

Re­flect­ing on his first year in of­fice, Alexan­der said he is sat­is­fied with ef­forts to re­build na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­sti­tu­tions, though he not­ed that the pub­lic will ul­ti­mate­ly judge the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance.

“There must be im­prove­ment, and the pub­lic must ben­e­fit from that im­prove­ment,” he said.

Ghany Ju­nior was shot mul­ti­ple times in the chest in what po­lice be­lieve to be a do­mes­tic killing. A fe­male rel­a­tive told po­lice she act­ed in self-de­fence while pro­tect­ing her two young daugh­ters, whom Ghany Ju­nior al­leged­ly threat­ened to kill at their Vista­bel­la home. She hand­ed over a li­censed firearm used in the killing. Her at­tor­ney, Prakash Ra­mad­har, de­clined com­ment, while se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers said the woman is in cus­tody.