Wife, 3 others in custody for murder of taxi driver

The three men who were reportedly paid to execute 47-year-old Mohamed Haniff of Lot 56 Experiment, West Coast Berbice, were arrested and are being interrogated by detectives.

The names of the three men were given to the police by the man’s wife, who is the alleged mastermind in the murder of her husband over the pawning of their marital home. The wife remains in custody.
A police source told Guyana Times that while the men did not give a full confession, they have given a detailed report on the plan to murder the man. The three men, including a security officer, the source noted, are from Bath Settlement, WCB.
As the men are being questioned, one of them told detectives that he was not involved in the actual murder but rather drove the suspects to the address. He noted that based on discussions in the car, the plan was to commit the robbery but there was no mention of killing the man.
This publication was told that the man returned to Guyana a few days prior to his death and was on self-quarantine. One of the suspects told the detectives that they were told he returned with lots of cash.
The mastermind reportedly did not have access to the money that the man brought back, hence the planned robbery. “The plan was to get to money to repay the man she had pawned the house to…the man had told her that if she does not pay, he will take possession of the house…but based on investigations, the husband was not aware of the business transaction,” a source stated.
Nevertheless, the police are continuing their investigations.
It was reported that three men entered the now dead man’s house Friday evening. At the time, the man’s 44-year-old wife was at home also.
The masked men were armed with a small handgun, a metal bar and a cutlass. One of the suspects dealt the victim several chops to his head as the others demanded cash. After he did not co-operate, he was severely beaten in the presence of his wife. After ransacking the house, they found an undisclosed sum of money and a quantity of jewellery.
After the robbery, the suspects left the home and made good their escape in an unknown direction. Sometime after the ordeal, the injured man was found lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
He was picked up by a neighbour and rushed to the Fort Wellington Public Hospital, and later transferred to the New Amsterdam Public Hospital where he was admitted a patient in a serious condition but subsequently died at about 01:30h on Saturday.
It was reported that the man’s wife called a friend who was several villages away and reported the incident to him. That friend then called a neighbour, who called the police. The man was chopped to his forehead and once to the back of his head.
After speaking with investigators and allegedly giving conflicting stories, the woman was taken into custody.
The couple’s daughter, Bibi Haniff, who lives next door with her husband, revealed that her father returned from St Marteen and had approximately US$8000 and gold jewellery in a bag hidden away.
According to her, she was told that when the men entered the house, they demanded that her mother hand over the money and gold. She said that her father was in the bedroom while her mother was in the sitting room at the time of the incident.