Young requests top cop interview Sturge over murder remarks

Ke­jan Haynes

For­mer prime min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young has fol­lowed through on a promise made in Par­lia­ment by for­mal­ly writ­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, re­quest­ing po­lice in­ter­view De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge over state­ments link­ing two re­cent dead­ly shoot­ings.

In a let­ter dat­ed May 11 and marked “ur­gent”, Young asked the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice to ques­tion Sturge af­ter the min­is­ter claimed dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day that he knew the re­cent mur­ders were con­nect­ed and ref­er­enced Young's con­stituen­cy ex­plic­it­ly.

Young en­closed a copy of the Hansard pro­ceed­ings from May 8 and re­ferred specif­i­cal­ly to Sturge’s con­tri­bu­tion as MP for To­co/San­gre Grande and Min­is­ter of De­fence.

“In light of the clear ut­ter­ance of Min­is­ter Sturge, I am here­by re­quest­ing that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in­ter­view the Min­is­ter to as­cer­tain who com­mit­ted the heinous mur­ders of the nine-year old J'Lay­na Arm­strong on April 19, 2026 and the mur­der of two-year-old Aki­ni Kafi on May 7, 2026 and what is his knowl­edge of same,” Young wrote.

The move comes days af­ter Young pub­licly vowed in Par­lia­ment to send Sturge’s con­tri­bu­tion to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

“I im­me­di­ate­ly put on a record Through you Mis­ter Speak­er, a re­quest for the Hansard of the last speak­er's con­tri­bu­tion, and I'm go­ing to take that an­swer of his con­tri­bu­tion here this af­ter­noon, and I'm send­ing it di­rect­ly to the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, and ask­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Mis­ter Speak­er, hav­ing lis­tened very care­ful­ly to his con­tri­bu­tion, to en­sure that The speak­er is in­ter­viewed, be­cause he claims to know ex­act­ly who it is per­pe­trat­ed the mur­ders yes­ter­day in Bel­mont,” Young said in the House on Fri­day.

The let­ter stems from com­ments made by Sturge dur­ing de­bate in Par­lia­ment when he linked the May 7 triple killing in St Fran­cois Val­ley with the April 19 quadru­ple mur­der along La­dy Young Road, Mor­vant.

Aqiyl “Fats” Kafi, 30, and An­tho­ny “Mon­ster” Wil­son, 28, were killed af­ter gun­men am­bushed the ve­hi­cle they were trav­el­ling in along Up­per St Fran­cois Val­ley Road around 8.35 am on May 7. Kafi’s two-year-old son Aki­ni Kafi, lat­er died at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, while his moth­er, An­to­nia Cain-Kafi, re­mains hos­pi­talised in a sta­ble con­di­tion.

On April 19, nine-year-old J’Lay­na Arm­strong was among four peo­ple killed when gun­men am­bushed a car along La­dy Young Road in Mor­vant.

Dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion in the House, Sturge said: “I’m sure he 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. We know Belle Eau Road is in play. We know Ser­ra­no Road is in play.”

Young im­me­di­ate­ly chal­lenged the re­marks in Par­lia­ment and de­fend­ed res­i­dents of Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West.

“I state here this evening, I have no idea and no clue who are the crim­i­nal el­e­ments that per­pe­trat­ed this heinous crime. I do not know those crim­i­nal el­e­ments, and I’ve nev­er in­ter­act­ed with them,” Young said then.

The de­vel­op­ment al­so comes af­ter se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ing the Bel­mont killings re­port­ed­ly con­clud­ed the in­ci­dents were not linked.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors close to the probe said in­quiries car­ried out since the mur­ders had led them to con­clude the two at­tacks were sep­a­rate mat­ters, al­though they de­clined to dis­close fur­ther de­tails. Of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau al­so re­turned to Bel­mont on Mon­day, dis­trib­ut­ing fly­ers and ap­peal­ing for in­for­ma­tion from res­i­dents.

Con­tact­ed on Mon­day fol­low­ing the po­lice as­sess­ment, Sturge main­tained his po­si­tion.

“That might ex­plain why de­tec­tion rates have been his­tor­i­cal­ly low, and con­vic­tion rates are even low­er. As a for­mer crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney, my po­si­tion is that un­til I see cred­i­ble ev­i­dence to the con­trary, backed up by charges laid, I will main­tain what I said in the Par­lia­ment and which is based on the in­tel­li­gence on the ground. Small won­der why con­vic­tion rates in gang-re­lat­ed mat­ters, and un­der the An­ti-Gang Act in par­tic­u­lar, is clos­er to ze­ro,” Sturge said.