Vistabella woman freed after husband’s killing

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­[email protected]

A Vista­bel­la woman who told po­lice she act­ed in self-de­fence af­ter hours of al­leged abuse has been re­leased from cus­tody, with no charges laid fol­low­ing ad­vice from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard.

Verona Ghany, 45, walked out of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion on Sun­day around mid­day ac­com­pa­nied by her at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, four days af­ter she sur­ren­dered to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Ghany had been de­tained in con­nec­tion with the shoot­ing death of her hus­band, 37-year-old busi­ness­man Steve Ghany Ju­nior, at their Alexan­der Street, Vista­bel­la home on Wednes­day morn­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, of­fi­cers re­spond­ed short­ly af­ter 9 am to a shoot­ing-in-progress call from the E999 Com­mand Cen­tre and were met by Ghany, who said she had act­ed in self-de­fence dur­ing a pro­longed vi­o­lent or­deal.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors were told the in­ci­dent fol­lowed an ar­gu­ment over al­leged in­fi­deli­ty af­ter her hus­band re­turned home around 2.30 am, which es­ca­lat­ed in­to hours of al­leged abuse.

Po­lice said Ghany claimed the vi­o­lence con­tin­ued un­til around 8.30 am, when her hus­band al­leged­ly fired a shot at her but missed. She told of­fi­cers she then used an­oth­er li­censed firearm in the home and fired mul­ti­ple shots, fa­tal­ly wound­ing him.

Crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors re­cov­ered two li­censed pis­tols, in­clud­ing a Glock 19 and a Sig Sauer, along with mul­ti­ple spent 9mm shells.

Her at­tor­ney said she was re­lieved af­ter her re­lease and look­ing for­ward to re­unit­ing with her two daugh­ters. He said she has been re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tion and no tri­bunal has been con­vened.

He al­so said he in­tends to ad­dress wider is­sues of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at a press con­fer­ence next week.