Five kidnapped T&T fishermen return home

(Trinidad Guardian) Kidnappers train their guns at five of the six T&T fishermen who were reportedly abducted and taken to Venezuela recently. The victims were from left Brandon Arjoon, Jason O’Brian , Jagdesh Jude Jaikaran, Jerry O’Brian , Linton Manohar and missing from photo Ricky Rambharose. The men returned home safelyThursday.

The five fish­er­men who were kid­napped and held hostage in Venezuela more than a week ago have fi­nal­ly re­turned home.

Lyn­ton Manohar, 35, Ja­son O’Brien, 38, Bran­don Ar­joon, 28, Jagdesh Jaik­er­an, 17 and Rick­ey Ramb­harose, 49, of Morne Di­a­blo, Pe­nal, came back to Trinidad on a pirogue dur­ing the ear­ly hours of yester­day morn­ing.

A US$200, 000 ran­som had been de­mand­ed their safe re­turn. O’Brien’s broth­er Jer­ry, who was al­so kid­napped along with the oth­ers, was sent back home last Thurs­day with an in­struc­tion to pay the ran­som.

The fam­i­ly of the fish­er­men sold their boats, en­gines and a van to raise the mon­ey.

Po­lice said the men ap­peared to be un­harmed and were ex­pect­ed to be tak­en to the Siparia Health Fa­cil­i­ty for a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion. Over the past week grue­some im­ages of men be­ing mu­ti­lat­ed had cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia, caus­ing pan­ic among the fam­i­ly. How­ev­er, the po­lice said these were fake post­ings and not the fish­er­men.