Ramzan Alli, a Good Hope businessman, was yesterday discovered dead in the trunk of a rental car with a plastic bag duct-taped over his head on the Coldingen Railway Embankment Road.
The 45-year-old man, of Kissoon’s Housing Scheme, Good Hope, East Coast Demerara, (ECD) left his home on Saturday night after receiving a call. Alli’s death comes almost a year after his brother, scrap metal dealer Akbar Alli, was fatally shot during a daring daylight robbery on Brickdam, Georgetown.
Police in a press statement last evening said they are investigating the murder of Alli. The man’s body, according to them, was found at about 8.30 am yesterday on the Coldingen Railway Embankment Road in the trunk of a motor car which Alli had rented. A plastic bag held in place by duct tape was tied over Alli’s head, police said.
Investigations have revealed that the man left his home about 9.20 pm on Saturday after receiving a phone call. After Alli failed to returned home, police said, relatives and employees conducted a search yesterday morning and found the rental vehicle on the road.
The police were subsequently informed and a search later revealed Alli’s body in the trunk. Alli’s body was taken to the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour. Police are awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination and investigations are ongoing.
There were no visible marks of violence on Alli’s body, a source said last evening, and the man’s hands and feet were not bound. The man, the source explained, “most likely died of suffocation”.
“There was only a plastic bag over his head which was duct-taped to his neck,” the source reported, “other than that there was nothing else on his body, no bindings, no wounds, no nothing.”
Alli’s wife and a male relative were seen in the back of a police van exiting the Good Hope housing scheme when Stabroek News visited the area yesterday. This newspaper later learnt from relatives that the woman was on her way to the station to give police a statement.
“We weren’t here so we can’t say anything,” one relative said yesterday. “They just took his [Alli’s] wife to the station to give a statement and there is no one else here who can say anything.”
Asked about the type of business Alli conducted, relatives said, “It is not our place to say”. However, Stabroek News was reliably informed that the man transported fuel, groceries and other items to the North West District to sell.
Alli leaves to mourn his wife, three sons and two daughters. Stabroek News understands that when the man left his home on Saturday he did not tell his family where he was going. As it grew late, reports said, Alli’s wife tried to contact him on his mobile but he could not be reached. The man, this newspaper learnt, would habitually turn off his cellular phone whenever he left the house for business. Sources say police will be likely tracking down the person who called him on Saturday night for further clues.
Relatives were also not able to say whether Alli left his home with cash or other valuables or whether anything might have gone missing. Meanwhile, police have given no indication that the man might have been robbed before his death.
An East Coast resident, who drove past the Coldingen area shortly before 1 am yesterday, reported seeing a car parked there. The resident explained that they did not stop to investigate because it was late and they saw no sign that anyone was in or out of the vehicle. While it is possible that it might have been Alli’s rental car, the resident said, they are in no position to “vouch for that”.
The time and place of Alli’s murder is uncertain. A police source has since indicated that it is possible that Alli may have been murdered at a different location and then abandoned on the lonely Coldingen road. There are no occupied dwellings very close to the area where Alli’s rental car was discovered.
The man’s younger brother, 35-year-old Akbar Alli, died on July 24 last year after sustaining a single, fatal gunshot wound to the chest shortly after 1 pm that day.
Police, in statement issued hours after Akbar Alli’s death, said their investigations revealed that the man and his wife went to a city bank where they transacted some business. They then went to another city bank and then proceeded to Brickdam with the intention of transacting business with an auto dealer.
Alli, police had said, parked his motor vehicle and he and his wife, who was holding a bag containing $2.1 million were about to exit the vehicle when two men rode up on a motorcycle. The pillion rider, who was armed with a handgun, held them up and took away the bag and the men then rode away. Alli began running behind the motorcycle and the armed man then shot him in his chest.
