‘Reprisal attack’

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge has con­firmed that 23-month-old Aki­ni Kafi was killed in a reprisal at­tack, linked to the in­ci­dent that led to the mur­der of nine-year-old J’lay­na Arm­strong in April.

And he claims that Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Stu­art Young is aware of that. Young lat­er cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­fut­ed that al­le­ga­tion.

The bomb­shell rev­e­la­tion was made in the Low­er House dur­ing a de­bate on the Pa­role Bill 2026 yes­ter­day.

“I’m sure he (Young) knows that the mur­ders yes­ter­day are con­nect­ed to the mur­ders in La­dy Young, the quadru­ple mur­der. It’s con­nect­ed. And we know where they are from. We know, we’ve seen all the wakes and all the cry­ing,” Sturge de­clared.

He added, “We know Belle Eau Road is in play. We know Ser­ra­no Road is in play.”

Thurs­day’s in­ci­dent hap­pened along Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road, which is in Young’s con­stituen­cy.

Sturge said he grew up “100 me­tres” from where the in­ci­dent took place and there­fore is privy to cer­tain in­for­ma­tion.

Aki­ni’s fa­ther, Aquil “Fats” Kafi, 30, and fam­i­ly friend An­tho­ny “Mon­ster” Wil­son, 28, were killed when gun­men opened fire on the car they were in along Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road around 8.35 am. Aki­ni lat­er suc­cumbed to his in­juries at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (PoS­GH), while his moth­er, An­to­nia Cain-Kafi, 36, re­mained ward­ed in a crit­i­cal con­di­tion last night.

On April 19, nine-year-old Arm­strong was one of four peo­ple shot and killed when gun­men am­bushed a car along the La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant.

Ad­dress­ing the House yes­ter­day, Sturge claimed that Young’s con­stituents are the most mur­der­ous cit­i­zens in the coun­try.

“What he’s not say­ing is that his con­stituents are large­ly re­spon­si­ble for the most mur­ders in this coun­try. And they don’t want ZOSO. They don’t want ZOSO. But the peo­ple beg­ging for ZOSO,” Sturge said.

The De­fence Min­is­ter added that Thurs­day’s triple mur­der and the quadru­ple mur­der on April 19 strad­dle three Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­stituen­cies.

“The same way you wouldn’t know when your con­stituents are go­ing to mur­der some of your oth­er con­stituents a street away, you ex­pect us to know?” Sturge asked.

He al­so blast­ed Young for hav­ing the “gall” to de­mand the res­ig­na­tions of him­self and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, de­spite pre­sid­ing over hun­dreds of mur­ders dur­ing his own tenure as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

“When 11 mur­ders take place un­der his watch in one day, he has the gall to come and call for res­ig­na­tions on this side?”

Young in­ter­rupt­ed Sturge dur­ing the de­bate and de­scribed his al­le­ga­tions as “ver­bal di­ar­rhoea.”

How­ev­er, Sturge even­tu­al­ly shot back, “You know what he couldn’t say? That I lied. He had to ac­cept it.”

Young stood af­ter to con­tribute to the Pa­role Bill but first, he re­spond­ed to Sturge’s state­ments.

In a fiery at­tack on Sturge, Young said the min­is­ter’s par­lia­men­tary con­tri­bu­tion “must go down as one of the worst in the his­to­ry of Par­lia­ment.”

Young re­quest­ed the Hansard from the de­bate so he could for­ward Sturge’s state­ment to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. He said he be­lieved Sturge should be in­ter­viewed by po­lice over state­ments made dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion.

“I’m go­ing to take that Hansard of his con­tri­bu­tion here this af­ter­noon and I’m send­ing it di­rect­ly to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice,” Young de­clared.

“I’m ask­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to en­sure that the speak­er is in­ter­viewed be­cause he claims to know ex­act­ly who it is per­pe­trat­ed the mur­ders yes­ter­day in Bel­mont.”

Young al­so sought to dis­tance him­self from any sug­ges­tion that he had knowl­edge of crim­i­nal el­e­ments op­er­at­ing in his con­stituen­cy.

“I state here this evening, I have no idea and no clue who are the crim­i­nal el­e­ments that per­pe­trat­ed this heinous crime,” he said.

“I do not know those crim­i­nal el­e­ments and I’ve nev­er in­ter­act­ed with them.”

Young al­so heav­i­ly crit­i­cised Sturge for claim­ing that PNM con­stituen­cies are hotbeds for peo­ple with homi­ci­dal ten­den­cies.

“As a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, along with my col­league from Port-of-Spain South and my oth­er col­leagues from Laven­tille East/Mor­vant and Laven­tille West, we whole­heart­ed­ly re­ject, out­right and con­demn the last speak­er (Sturge) for the deroga­to­ry man­ner with­in which he clothed his whole con­tri­bu­tion here to­day,” Young said.

He added, “And the peo­ple of Bel­mont, where he comes from, and he was care­ful to tell the pop­u­la­tion he comes from, should hang their heads in shame at him here to­day be­cause the man­ner in which he de­scribed them re­peat­ed­ly is un­ac­cept­able.”

Young al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as Gov­ern­ment ar­ro­gance in re­spond­ing to con­cerns about crime in Bel­mont and East Port-of-Spain.

The Op­po­si­tion MP said it was par­tic­u­lar­ly painful that an­oth­er shoot­ing oc­curred in Bel­mont yes­ter­day af­ter­noon while Par­lia­ment was in ses­sion dis­cussing crime. (See page 8)

“As we sat here in Par­lia­ment this af­ter­noon, at 2 pm, yet an­oth­er dri­ve-by shoot­ing took place in Bel­mont at St Fran­cois Plan­nings,” Young said.

“De­spite the as­sur­ances and the ut­ter­ances which are hol­low and of no ef­fect, the crime con­tin­ues un­abat­ed.”

He fur­ther ac­cused Sturge of hypocrisy, point­ing to the as­sas­si­na­tion of busi­ness­man Dan­ny Guer­ra in To­co/San­gre Grande.

“If his anal­o­gy used this af­ter­noon is by mere fact of one, be­ing a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, you should know who the crim­i­nal el­e­ments are, I call up­on the mem­ber for To­co/San­gre Grande to tell this pop­u­la­tion who it is that as­sas­si­nat­ed his fi­nancier, Dan­ny Guer­ra,” Young said.