After spending almost a month in a hospital bed Australian Jason Montgomery, shot during the robbery at Safraz’s Bar and Restaurant, boarded a flight for home yesterday.

Jason Montgomery

Montgomery, 36, sustained a gunshot wound in the abdomen. On the night of January 8, when three gunmen stormed the bar on David Street, Kitty, Montgomery was one of two patrons who were injured. A waitress, Kulmattie Singh, was fatally shot in the head.

After the incident, Montgomery was admitted to the High Dependency Unit of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). He was released from the GPH three days later on January 12. Montgomery was admitted the same day to a private hospital. He was a patient of that hospital’s Intensive Care Unit since January 12.

Mark Xavier, the injured man’s business associate, told Stabroek News via telephone that the Australian boarded a flight yesterday morning; the first of several which will take him home.

Montgomery’s parents had been trying for several weeks to have the man flown home.

Xavier said that recently the Australian has had several relapses and was overjoyed to finally be going home where he will have access to better medical treatment.

“He’s happy,” Xavier said of his associate yesterday, “as we were driving to the airport he said to me that he’s feeling better already just knowing that he’s on his way home.”

Montgomery’s family, Xavier said, hired a medical escort from a Florida-based company to take the man to Australia. The man will change flights at Trinidad, London, Dubai and finally Singapore before he reaches his homeland.

There have since been no developments in the police’s investigations. Two men had been arrested but were later released after a failed identification parade. Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had said that police were able to obtain footage of the robbery from a hidden security camera. The footage was expected to be enhanced by the police’s Information Technology Department. However, they have to date been unable to glean any information from the recording.