Over a four day period in June 1999, Trinidad and Tobago hanged Dole Chadee and eight members of his drugs gang.
Dole Chadee (born Nankissoon Boodram)
Over a four day period in June 1999, Trinidad and Tobago hanged Dole Chadee and eight members of his drugs gang.
Chadee was Trinidad's most notorious murderer, drug lord and gang leader. He went to the gallows on Friday the 4th of June 1999, at 6 a.m. as the bell pealed at nearby St. Mary's College. Gang member Joey Ramiah was the next to die.
And, at 8:44 a.m., it was Ramkalawan Singh's turn.
Three more were hanged on Saturday the 5th, Clive Thomas was being the first, followed by Robin Gopaul and Russel Sankerali, Prisons Commissioner Cipriani
Baptiste said. The men went “without trouble,” he said.
The final three executions were carried out on Monday, the 7th of June 1999. Joel Ramsingh, Stephen Eversley and Bhagwandeen Singh were put to death within three hours starting at 6 a.m. EDT at the Royal Jail in Port of Spain, Prison Commissioner Cipriani Baptiste said.
The executions were cleared by the Privy Council in London, the highest appeal court for the Caribbean earlier on Friday the 4th of June, their ruling accepting Trinidad's constitutional right to enforce a law that states: "Every person convicted of murder shall suffer death."
Chadee, 47, and his “gang of eight” were convicted in 1996 of killing Hamilton “Mice” Baboolal and three family members in a 1994 drug dispute. Chadee had allegedly instructed the gunmen to kill the whole family, including two children. They spared the children, but gunned down Baboolal, his sister and his parents.
After the trial, the key witness against the group was shot, hacked and burned to death as soon as he left protective custody. Chadee was a chief suspect in that slaying, but he was never charged.
Chadee’s 46.5 hectare estate and a number of buildings in the rural village of Piparo, in south central Trinidad, were reclaimed by the authorities, under the amended Dangerous Drugs Act of 1991, after it was discovered that he had been squatting on state land for more than 15 years. The buildings were to be used as a drug rehabilitation centre, a fitting irony!
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