A PLEA agreement entered into by a man accused of killing fuel dealer Ramzan Alli has led to a fresh development in the 17-year-old murder investigation, with Alli’s wife, Mailaini Alli, now facing the court again.
Alli appeared before Magistrate Teriq Mohammed at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday and was formally brought before the court in connection with the July 2009 murder of her husband.
As the charge is indictable, no plea was taken. The accused was remanded to prison, with the case set to return to court on September 29, 2026, for disclosure.
Attorney-at-law Bernard DaSilva, who represents Alli, said the renewed prosecution stems from statements provided to police by Sadiek Mitchell, who was previously charged in connection with Ramzan’s death and is alleged to have been Alli’s lover.
Mitchell recently entered into a plea agreement and is expected to be sentenced at the Demerara High Court in September, according to DaSilva.
The attorney said information contained in Mitchell’s statements following the plea agreement is now being relied upon by police in bringing the case against Alli for a second time.
The contents of those statements were not disclosed, nor was it revealed in court what specific new evidence the prosecution believes links Alli to her husband’s killing.
The woman’s attorney also raised concerns about his client’s health during Tuesday’s proceedings, telling the court that she is suffering from a number of illnesses.
Medical documentation was submitted for the court’s consideration, following which Magistrate Mohammed directed the prison authorities to ensure that Alli receives her prescribed medication while in custody.
Mitchell had himself faced prosecution for the murder. He was charged in March 2019 and, following a Preliminary Inquiry (PI), a magistrate found that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against him and committed him to stand trial at the Demerara Criminal Assizes.
His plea agreement and impending sentencing now appear to have provided investigators with fresh information in relation to the wider case.
The development comes after Alli’s own prosecution ended in 2020.
She had been arrested in April 2019 after returning to Guyana from New York, where she had been living, and was subsequently placed on remand in connection with Ramzan’s murder.
Police had alleged that she was involved in a plot to have her husband killed and had paid Mitchell $7 million to carry out the murder.
Alli spent approximately two years on remand before the murder charge was withdrawn by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, in December 2020, following the completion of a Preliminary Inquiry.
Consequently, Alli was discharged.
The renewed proceedings revive a case that dates back to the early hours of July 12, 2009, when Ramzan’s body was discovered inside the trunk of a rented vehicle along Coldingen Railway Embankment Road, East Coast Demerara (ECD).
Ramzan, 50, left his Good Hope, East Coast Demerara home and was never seen again.
Relatives reportedly began searching for him after repeated calls to his cellphone went unanswered. His body was subsequently found in the trunk of a rented Toyota Carina motor car.
Police had alleged that Ramzan was attacked while he was asleep before being placed inside the vehicle. A plastic bag was reportedly duct-taped over his head, and a post-mortem examination found that he died from asphyxiation.
The investigation initially led to arrests in 2009, but those persons were released because of insufficient evidence.
It was not until years later that investigators reopened the case, eventually leading to Mitchell’s and Alli’s arrest and prosecution in 2019.
While the earlier case against Alli ended with her being discharged, the police investigation apparently continued, culminating in the new information reportedly obtained from Mitchell after his plea agreement.
