AFTER days of investigation, two teens were on Tuesday charged for the murder of 58-year-old Fazal Shaheed, who was shot and killed during an invasion at his family home in East LaPenitence, Georgetown recently.

Shawn DaSantos, 19 and Stephen Howard, 18 both residents of Freeman Street, appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan and were not required to plead to the charge of murder.

It is alleged that the duo on September 24, at Lot 194 Freeman Street murdered Shaheed, a Berbice businessman, during the course of a robbery. The unrepresented duo was remanded to prison until October 19. Howard told the court that he was beaten by the police to confess to the crime. He also alleged that an officer forced him to implicate DaSantos in the crime.

On Sunday, September 24, at Lot 194 East La Penitence, Georgetown, gunmen stormed the Shaheed family home as relatives were making final preparations for the patriarch’s one-year memorial service.

Fazal Shaheed was reportedly in the yard, around 00:40hrs, when the men invaded the house in which his two brothers, sisters and mother were at the time. The dead man’s brothers, Talim, 50, of Toronto, Canada, and Shalim, 53, of the United States, were both shot about their bodies.

A police source close to the investigation had told the Guyana Chronicle that it was Fazal, during his last moments, who told a relative who his killers were, since they lived a mere few houses away. And, it was that critical information which led to the arrest of the two suspects less than 24 hours after the incident occurred.

The 18-year-old suspect has been identified as the little brother of a high-profile prisoner, Jason Howard, who is before the court for murder and a series of armed robberies.

The suspects reportedly told the police that the gun that was used in the commission of the crime was borrowed from a friend. The source said, too, that the men further confessed that after seeing “strange faces” in the street, and having learnt that the persons were foreigners, they planned the robbery. However, things did not go as planned, as Fazal and his two brothers resisted and as they fought with their attackers, the gunmen discharged several rounds at them. Fazal Shaheed was shot four times about his body.