DEPUTY Commissioner of Police (Law Enforcement), Mr. Seelall Persaud, yesterday, said that a post-mortem performed on the body of city businessman Frank Persaud revealed that he died of strangulation. He added that, based on the post-mortem findings yesterday, it is now deemed a homicide; but up to press time, no arrests have been made although investigations are ongoing.
When Persaud’s lifeless body was found, there were no visible signs of injury, but a plastic was used to conceal the man’s body in a storage bond under his house, when three men, posing as customs officials, said they wanted to take photographs, inspect the goods, and see the duty slips for the shipment on Tuesday night.
Police said that, at about 20:30hrs on Saturday, July 31, 2012, three men posing as customs officials entered the home of businessman Frank Persaud, 45, of Bel Air Village, Greater Georgetown.
The men, who had visited the home earlier, demanded to check goods that were in a storage bond, and they were accompanied to so do by Frank Persaud.
The men later called out to Persaud’s wife, Bibi Nalisha Mohamed, and told her that he was calling her. Upon entering the bond with her two-year-old daughter, Mohamed and the infant were held and tied up with duct tape, during which she observed Frank Persaud lying on the ground covered with a piece of plastic.
The perpetrators then entered the home, ransacked the building, and took away a lap top computer, a quantity of jewellery, and an undisclosed sum of cash, before escaping along with a quantity of goods from the storage bond.
Bibi Mohamed subsequently managed to free herself and raise an alarm. Frank Persaud was then taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH), where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Frank Persaud died while being beaten and tortured by three men who went to his home late Tuesday night under the guise of being customs officials who wanted to check the goods that were stored in a bond under his house.
The men bound and gagged him in the bond, and also beat his wife, Bibi Nalisha Mohamed.
The tearful woman told the Guyana Chronicle that her husband had just finished exercising in their home gym, located at the back of the yard, when three men who claimed to be customs officers arrived at their gate, and her husband asked her to give him the keys to the gate.
Mohamed said she was watching the news on television when the men arrived, and since one of them had a badge and all were neatly dressed, she did not think they were fake customs officers.
It was not until one of the men had told her that her husband was calling her that she went downstairs with the toddler; and as she entered the bond, she realized something was wrong when she did not see her husband.
One of the men attacked her, taking away her gold anklet then her daughter, before proceeding to bind her feet and hands.
Mohamed noted that the men also tied her baby’s hands, and threw the child, demanding she hand over the money and jewels in the house. They asked her to comply, assuring her she would not be harmed.
“I told him to go upstairs where I had a bag with $100,000, and he went but did not find it at first; and returned to me very upset, then asked me if I was telling the truth, and threatened to kill my daughter because she started to cry loudly.”
Mohamed explained that the men went back upstairs and looted the place of valuables, including a laptop computer, jewels and money, before they hurriedly left. She managed to free herself, after she noticed that her daughter was looking unwell and calls to her husband went unanswered.
The grieving woman said she got up and went looking for her husband; and when she pulled a plastic from the ground, she saw him. She tried to revive him, but he was lifeless; and she went to alert the neighbours, who summoned the police.
She noted that the same group of men had visited their home on Monday, and said they would return to inspect the paper work and goods the family had stored on their premises, since they were not satisfied that the goods was legitimate.
Mohamed could not stop crying yesterday as she talked about her husband, even as several relatives tried to comfort her as she nursed an injured leg.