Mohini Ganase said yesterday that she shot and killed prison officer Robert Seecharan in self defence because she felt he was going to kill her mother Sherry-Ann Seecharan. She said Seecharan was in a state of drunkeness last Wednesday when he attacked both she and her mother and she shot him with his own firearm at a stage when she thought he was about to take her mother’s life.
Ganase made the statement yesterday during a press conference at attorney Gerald Ramdeen’s Harris Street, San Fernando offices, after she and her mother were released from custody without charge in the case.
After an emotional reunion with her mother at the San Fernando Homicide Division on Coffee Street, San Fernando, Ganase said after Seecharan attacked both her mother and herself, she had no choice but to take the course of action she eventually took. She said Seecharan, after turning on her as well, had again began beating her mother and threatening to kill her. She said realising her mother’s life was in danger she rushed to her defence.
“She was on the ground and he was still kicking her and knocking her head on the rim,” she said in a small voice. “He had the gun pointed at her and saying he going to kill her and then us.” Ganase said she fought to take the gun away from Seecharan and eventually succeeded. “I get the gun and I just pull the trigger,” she said.
Asked what was going through her mind at the time, she said, “I thought he was going to kill my mother, she was bleeding and he was not stopping hitting her.” Moment before, an emotional Sherry-Ann also recounted the events that led to her husband’s death. “We were coming from the beach and Robert was drunk and driving very badly,” she said.
“He pulled over and I stopped too and he come out the car and started cursing me, then Mohini ask him why he talking to me like that. “He went over to her side and started slapping her through the car window, then he open the door and drag her out.” She said Seecharan beat her (Sherry-Ann) so badly she began to black out.
“He had me on the ground and was pounding my head against the (car) rim. I kinda of lost away and then I heard the gunshot and saw him fall back.” Seecharan said she contacted the police and when officers arrived a short time later she told them it was she who had shot Seecharan.
“The EHS was there and I thought Seecharan was alive. The police ask what happened and I said I shot Seecharan.” The mother of four said she never hesitated to take the blame for Seecharan’s death because she did not want to see any of her children arrested. “When they took me to the station I lied again, I told them I shot him. I thought my children would have had time to get home by that time.”
Little did she know then that both of her daughters were at the same police station being interrogated by investigators. “About two o’clock in the morning, then I saw them in the station and I asked the police what my children was doing there. He said they were in for questioning.”
Five years of abuse
Seecharan gave advice to other women currently in abusive relationships. “Don’t be like me, I was a coward to let this reach so far. If I didn’t lose a husband, me and my children might have been dead. “Look for help somewhere. I take five years of this and if he didn’t die I don’t know what I would have been taking again.”
Ramdeen gave out copies of a statement Sherry-Ann made during her time in custody, which outlined instances of abuse against her by Seecharan. Recalling one incident from January this year, she said, “Every time Robert drink he does get violent and threaten to kill me and I know he could do it cause he always boasting how he does beat big strong criminal in the jail and have them begging and a woman is nothing.”
Ramdeen urged authorities against giving firearms to prisons officers ‘willy-nilly.’ “This was clearly a case of what happened on the job continuing at home. This is the end result of a prison’s officer being given a firearm willy-nilly,” Ramdeen said. He also called for proper psychiatric evaluation for any member of the protective services being issued a firearm.
“In this case, this was not the first time Seecharan threatened to use the same firearm on Mrs Seecharan. Here you had a loaded firearm being carried around in a purse, being used to threaten lives and eventually being used in the death of one man. This is a wake-up call for the authorities.”
He, however, called his client’s release a victory for the justice system.
“Today the justice system has worked and won. I want to pay tribute to the office of the DPP. The law has been compassionate and allowed them both to go free.”