Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A St Joseph man has been charged with the mur­der of busi­ness­man Shashi Ram­per­sad af­ter po­lice re­ceived ad­vice from the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

Po­lice re­port­ed that of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau spoke with the DPP on Fri­day and were ad­vised to charge Math­ew Hinds, of Llu­en­go Vil­lage, Mara­cas, St Joseph.

Ram­per­sad’s de­com­pos­ing body was un­earthed on Feb­ru­ary 8, in a forest­ed area off Riverville Trace, Dibe Road, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, some 30 feet away from where an­oth­er man was found days ear­li­er.

On Jan­u­ary 28, of­fi­cers from var­i­ous units—in­clud­ing the Re­gion I Homi­cide Bu­reau, the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad, the Ca­nine Unit, and the West­ern Di­vi­sion, with as­sis­tance from the Reg­i­ment—while search­ing for Ram­per­sad’s body, found the re­mains of Win­ston Ros­tant in a foetal po­si­tion buried in a shal­low grave.

Ros­tant, 48, and an­oth­er man, Ju­nior Tay­lor, 43, were re­port­ed miss­ing on Oc­to­ber 27, 2024. Their rel­a­tives claimed they had been kid­napped, and a $100,000 ran­som was de­mand­ed for their safe re­lease.

When Ros­tant’s re­mains were first found, they were ini­tial­ly be­lieved to be­long to Ram­per­sad. Ka­reem Ro­driguez has since been de­nied bail af­ter be­ing charged with Ram­per­sad’s kid­nap­ping.

The 36-year-old busi­ness­man was ab­duct­ed on No­vem­ber 21, 2024.