By FRANCIS JOSEPH
The killing on Tuesday evening of attorney Taradath Singh, brings back memories of lawyers who have been killed in the past.
The two most famous of all were Selwyn Richardson (1995) and Dana Seetahal (2014). Like Singh, the killing of Richardson and Seetahal were “hits”.
Singh, 53, a former police officer, was shot dead as he was about to enter his vehicle at Caroni Savannah Road, Charlieville, around 6.30 pm.
What made this killing a chilling one, was that on September 28, an attempt was made to kill Singh outside his home at Penn Trace, Cunupia. On that occasion, Singh escaped unhurt. But he told investigators, friends and colleagues, that he suspected that it could be someone close to him who wanted to harm him.
But Singh went about his business as normal. On Tuesday, he let his guard down and was shot dead by a lone gunman, who simply walked away.
No one was arrested for either incident.
What about the other killing of lawyers?
- Randall Hector: A former state prosecutor and head of the Strategic Services Agency’s (SSA) legal department, Hector was shot dead on December 31, 2024, while walking towards his parked vehicle along Stanmore Avenue, Port of Spain. He was killed in front of his wife and children. His killing was linked to an attack to a criminal gang. No one has been arrested for this.
- Attorney Kumari Baksh, 60, and her her husband, Nasheed Baksh, 67, were murdered during a home invasion in Cumuto on January 10, 2025. They were discovered bound, gagged, and murdered inside their Caratal Road, Cumuto home. A T&TEC meter was removed from their property.
- Wesley Debideen : The 68-year-old prominent attorney was fatally shot in the head and torso by a gunman in a parked car at the Grand Bazaar shopping mall parking lot, in what police described as a targeted hit.
- He was shot dead by a gunman, moments after purchasing an ice cream cone at the Grand Bazaar shopping mall in Valsayn on August 27, 2013. Wesley Debideen, of Mountain View, Maracas, St Joseph, was eating his ice cream while driving out of the shopping mall, when he was ambushed by a gunman who shot him eight times, police said. No one was arrested.
- Dana Seetahal : A high-profile senior counsel, former independent senator, and special prosecutor, Seetahal was assassinated in a planned killing on May 4, 2014 along Hamilton Holder Street, Woodbrook. Seetahal had just left a casino and was on her way home when her vehicle was blocked. Before she could respond to the potential danger, she was shot in the head and died in her car.
- Several persons are before the court awaiting trial for her murder
- Selwyn Richardson: Former Attorney General, Minister of National Security, and Minister of Health, Richardson was shot dead outside his home at Samaan Drive, Cascade, on June 20, 1995. He was in the shadow of the sanctuary of his home, waiting in the driver
- ’s seat of his vehicle for the gateway to be opened, when he was gunned down.
Two assassins pounced on Richardson and pumped six bullets into his body. The attack was so swift and deadly that Richardson was unable to try and defend himself with the licensed firearm in the glove compartment of his car. His vehicle PAX 1986, was a sea blood after the murderous onslaught.
Police suspected two members of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen as the killers – Abdul Quadir and Curtis Felix. But before they could be apprehended for questioning, they themselves were executed.
Quadir’s body was found near his car on the Solomon Hochoy Highway, near the Tarouba flyover, while Felix’s body was found in some bushes in Las Cuevas.
Richardson had feared for his life, but did not want to alarm his wife Joyce.
But sources close to him had said, at the time of his death, he was worried that a civil suit he had filed against a weekly newspaper had caused tempers to flare.
And he had noticed he was being followed wherever he went.
An inquest into Richardson’s death, with Magistrate Beecham Maharaj sitting as coroner, ruled that he had been murdered, but the prime suspects, Felix and Quadir, had themselves subsequently died, causing the murder trail to grow cold.
A former murder accused and kidnapper, Imran Ali, had been arrested and charged with Quadir and Felix’ murders. It was alleged that Ali hired them to kill Richardson.
Then the main witness in the case against Ali was killed in New York.
Ali was shot dead in March, 1997, by members of the Anti-Kidnapping Squad, so the trail with regard to Richardson’s murder had died.
