A fishing expedition gone wrong or a drug deal turned sour.
These were the two theories being offered to explain what happened to five fishermen in the Gulf of Paria on Monday, leading to the murder of Christian Hernandez.
According to Lt Commander Kirk Jean-Baptiste, PRO for the T&T Coast Guard, five fishermen were robbed while retrieving their catch on Monday evening by Venezuelan pirates, leaving Hernandez dead, one of his crew mates injured and three others in police custody assisting with investigations into the incident.
Jean-Baptiste said the survivors claimed they went to the Hibiscus Platform, some 13 miles off the mainland, to retrieve their fishing nets.
On their return, somewhere between the platform and the Gulf of Paria, the men claimed they were approached by a group of Venezuelans in a pirogue.
The Venezuelans reportedly held them up, robbed them of their tool kits and whatever else they had on board. Jean-Baptiste said the men told the Coast Guard that after they were robbed their attackers fired on them without warning or aggravation.
The fishermen said they jumped into the water for safety. When the shooting stopped Hernandez, 19, was dead while Roger Clement, 26, was shot.
The other fishermen were Brandon Burnley 25, Issiah Clement, 19, both of Las Cuevas and Leron Samaroo, 29, from Mayaro.
Jean-Baptiste said the men were brought to Staubles Bay, Chaguaramas, where Clement was stabilised by the Coast Guard doctor and the medics rushed him to St James infirmary. Clement was listed in a stable condition at hospital yesterday.
However, sources close to investigation said the men were on the receiving end of a double cross.
They told the T&T Guardian that after a duffle bag filled with pieces of wood was thrown into the pirogue the Trinis were in, the Venezuelans opened fire on them. The men, now under heavy gunfire, were forced to abandon their boat and swim to safety.
Speaking with the media at their Las Cuevas home yesterday, Hernandez’s mother, Cinty Hernandez, said her son was a “good boy.”
The mother of three boys and three girls said she warned her son of the dangers of going out to sea and noted she had seen him a few minutes before he left for his final voyage.
Asked about the allegations her son was killed in a drug deal gone sour, Hernandez said: “I can’t say anything about that. I can’t say anything that I don’t know about.”
She added that since her son was a little boy he used to go fishing. She was supported by the teen’s uncle, Ancil Goodridge, who said it was he who encouraged the teen to become a fisherman and it was the trade available to those in the area.
He added that Hernandez’s killing was one where an ambitious young man who “looked for his own food” was snuffed out.
“It is a sad thing to see that my son went out there and he came back dead,” Hernandez said, adding that her son went wherever the fish were biting.
Welder killed
In an unrelated incident, a 32-year-old welder was gunned down yesterday morning in an area police said is frequented by drug dealers and users at Stella Street, Curepe.
According to police reports, around 1.20 am residents said they heard gunshots. They later found Denesh Bachan at the side of the road.
Police said there was a car parked nearby and there was a blood trail leading away from the vehicle, prompting officers to believe another man was shot and is seeking medical attention.
As such, the police are calling on both public and private health institutions to be on the lookout for anyone with gunshot wounds seeking medical attention.
Bachan, police said, lived at El Socorro, San Juan, and might have been lured to his death.