Four men, suspected to be members of a group that allegedly committed numerous armed robberies in the West Demerara district, were yesterday charged and remanded to prison.
Leon Williams, Jermaine Bailey, Compton Semple and Oral Softleigh appeared before Magistrate Rochelle Liverpool at the Leonora Magistrate’s Court charged with the robbery committed on a Cornelia Ida, West Coast Demerara (WCD) family last Friday and another at an Anna Catherina, WCD supermarket late last month.
Bailey was also separately charged with the illegal possession of a firearm and a quantity of ammunition. This matter was transferred to the Wales Magistrate’s Court for May 29, while the others were adjourned until June 5.
The four men were among six who were arrested by the police on Friday after they allegedly robbed the Cornelia Ida family of a quantity of cash and jewellery. Two others who managed to escape arrest remain on the run.
The police in a press release had said that quick action by the ranks of ‘D’ Division resulted in the arrests of the men during which an unlicensed firearm and a quantity of ammunition were found. Two cars, suspected to have been used to carry out the robbery, were also seized.
The police had said that investigations revealed that about 1.35 pm last Friday, four men, posing as customers, entered the business place which was being operated by a mother and daughter. “Minutes after, two men whipped out firearms, pounced and subsequently relieved the victims of their valuables and fled the scene in a waiting Spacio motor car, discharging several rounds in the air,” the police said.
A report was made to the police and they intercepted the getaway car several villages away from Cornelia Ida. At the time it was only occupied by the driver who hails from ‘D’ Field, Sophia. The police said he disclosed that his accomplices had entered another vehicle and were heading towards the Demerara Harbour Bridge.
As a result, the police said, ranks were placed at a road block at the western end of the Harbour Bridge, but the car transporting the bandits sped away into Parfait Harmonie and crashed into a concrete culvert.
It was during this process that the driver who hails from Section ‘K’ Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara, was allegedly shot by one of his accomplices, the police had added.
“The bandits, desperate [to get] across the Harbour Bridge to escape from the police, abandoned their injured accomplice and boarded separate vehicles destined for Georgetown,” the release stated. The other two suspects, one of whom hails from Lamaha Park, Georgetown, were nabbed at the Harbour Bridge.
As regards the Anna Catherina supermarket robbery, Anthony Bashir had related to this newspaper that although he usually closed early, he had decided to stay open a bit longer that evening to facilitate visitors to a “wake house,” just two doors away.
The businessman had said he was briefing his employees on the work schedule for the extended weekend when three of the four men walked in. Once inside, the men reportedly asked for the location of the switch to turn off the light in an attempt to give those on the outside the impression that the store was closed, the businessman had related.
However, according to Bashir, it was thanks to a little girl who had came to the store a make a purchase that he managed to raise an alarm. The men reportedly grabbed $30,000 in cash and $10,000 worth of phone cards before escaping through the back exit and subsequently over his and his neighbour’s fences.
The men are all known characters to the police.
