News

Jun 02, 2024

‘Marked for death’

targeted: The Nissan X-Trail SUV, PCR 8380, belonging to Keon Alexander. He claims the police issued an APB on the vehicle last Sunday. —Photo: Mark BassanT Central Trinidad contractor Keon Alexander

targeted: The Nissan X-Trail SUV, PCR 8380, belonging to Keon Alexander. He claims the police issued an APB on the vehicle last Sunday. —Photo: Mark BassanT

Central Trinidad contractor Keon Alexander claims he is being persecuted by the police and marked for death after switching political allegiance to the United National Congress (UNC).

And he believes it is all planned by a high-ranking Government offi­cial.

Last Monday night, at a United National Congress (UNC) meeting in Chaguanas, Caroni Central MP Arnold Ram said: “The PNM are so desperate that they are trying to target influential people in our campaign. I can tell you, under the guise of looking for arms and ammunition, they raided a house of a person...because the man supporting the UNC.

‘no pay’: The Edinburgh 500 Community Centre where Alexander says he was subcontracted to work on a portion of its construction.

“This was Saturday morning. Our friends in the Police Service told us the call came from Port of Spain, and they got a warrant they say to find something in the man’s house. And just this morning, we are told by the good officers in the Police Service that they have listed this person’s vehicle on an APB, all-points bulletin, so this is Brent Thomas all over again! And our information is that it being fostered by a Cabinet minister....”

Alexander reached out to the Sunday Express and confirmed that the person Ram was speaking about was himself.

An HDC area in Edinburgh 500 where Alexander’s landscaping company is subcontracted to cut the grass through another contractor.

Alexander, who owns C Alexander and Sons, as well as Plumbing Woodwork and General Maintenance Ltd, Elite Assurance Security Bodyguard and Canine Ltd and True Clean Landscaping and Transport Ltd, said about two months ago he switched his political allegiance to the UNC.

He joined the campaign management team for Jevon Telesford, the UNC’s candidate in the Edinburgh/Longdenville South district for the August 14 local government election.

Since becoming a UNC support­er and activist, he believes a high-­ranking Government official has been behind the attempt to shake him down and intimidate him.

“Last Saturday morning (July 29), police officers came to my house and say they get reports of illegal activities and there are guns and ammunition on my premises. They did not have a warrant, but I allowed them inside to check and they did not find anything,” Alexander, who did not want his photo used, recounted.

“On Sunday, I was told that the police got a report that my vehicle, a black X-Trail, was involved in a series of house break-ins in the Edin­burgh 500 area, and then Sunday evening, I was told a report came over the (police) set with my vehicle again, that there are occupants from Nelson Street roaming the area in the vehicle and they armed and dangerous, and they were saying to shoot on sight. I do not understand why they trying to use that strategy.”

He continued: “My vehicle is used for work-related purposes and it was parked up under a camera when the calls came in. I was told about this by friends and relatives who are in the Police Service and in WhatsApp groups who know the make and number plate of my vehicle PCR 8380.”

Legal advice

Alexander, who only recently became the vice-president of the Edinburgh Community Council and is also a youth officer of the Caroni branch district, said he has spoken with his lawyer following the incident.

“I had tried to make a police report, but they asked me how I knew that me and my vehicle were targeted. They wanted the person or persons in the Police Service who told me to come in and validate the report, but of course because of their job, they don’t want to be victimised, and this Government official knows people high up in the Police Service,” said Alexander.

He said he was weighing his legal options before making the next move.

Alexander said he also believes the motivation for the attack by the Government official may also have been personal in nature after he was given a subcontract to work on a portion of the construction of the Edinburgh Community Centre prior to Covid-19 in late 2019.

However, he said when con­struc­tion restarted post-Covid, the Government official’s company took over all the work, and “guess what, the contractor who had gotten the job from HDC and had subcontracted me stopped getting paid for previous work owed, and I could not get my money either”.

Alexander said during the development of the community centre, men in the area attempted to sabotage the initiative.

“It had some criminal activities where men from the community who were promised work tried to stop the work, but I stepped in and spoke to them and basically stopped them from what they wanted to do. So now it reach a point where I started to get blamed by this Government official for everything. Being on the community council and being part of the community and being a community activist is the problem I face,” he said.

Intimidation tactics

Alexander showed the Sunday Express one side of Edinburgh 500, near the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) development, where his landscaping company was responsible for cutting the grass, and said recently that a company owned by a Government official who is contracted to cut grass on the other side of the road was using intimidation tactics against some of his workers.

“My message is basically we all need the community to be self-sufficient, and people from the community itself need to get jobs and not have outside contractors and labourers in the community,” said Alexander.

Alexander admitted he once had a chequered past, and though he had an old court matter still pending, he has turned his life around and set up legitimate businesses.

“I am a Muslim and I tend to have a following in the community where the youths gravitate to me. I take that energy now and I channel it into community groups, sports and culture. I have transformed some of them by having them around me in a positive way.

“So I need things for them to do. The majority of them I hire to work for my company. Some cut grass, others doing plumbing, so I do not understand why they are coming at me this way,” said Alexander.

Trade unionist Christopher Jackman has criticised Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley on a political platform, saying life is harder for the working class under the People’s National Movement (PNM).

Jackman, the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) Pointe-a-Pierre branch president, was speaking at the OWTU’s Palms Club, San Fernando, during a United National Congress (UNC) meeting on Thursday.

THE Russian-Cuban refu­gee couple who were stran­ded in Trinidad and homeless for nearly three months are now safely in Brazil where they hope to start a new life.

Out of fear of being picked up by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) and eventually deported, Carlos Jimenez Vasco, 28, and his Russian wife, Daria Jimenez Vasco, 24, left Trinidad on a flight to Guyana on July 17, with tickets that were purchased by “coyotes” (people who smuggle immigrants across borders).

Central Trinidad contractor Keon Alexander claims he is being persecuted by the police and marked for death after switching political allegiance to the United National Congress (UNC).

And he believes it is all planned by a high-ranking Government offi­cial.

WHETHER they pay willingly or not, people serviced by the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation want more details as to how property tax will be used to improve their standard of living.

From the bustle of the Croisee to postcard scenes in parts of Maracas Valley, to those seeking “weekday relaxation” at Maracas Bay, home and business owners said they were “bracing” for Government’s proposed property tax, but ­demanded accountability.

Frustrated by people she knew well who kept taunting her and her children about her deceased husband’s money, business­woman Veronica Allison De Leon believed she had ta­ken enough.

“Come for me now,” she told people in her family circle whom she had once been close to.

A street dweller was fatally stabbed in Paradise Cemetery in San Fernando on Saturday morning.

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