Bibi Nazeela Habiboodean, the daughter of the murdered East Bank Essequibo businessman Habiboodean, was today slapped with a murder charge when she made her first appearance at the Leonora Magistrate Court on the West Coast of Demerara.
Her ‘hitman’, 28-year-old Linden Lewis, called ‘Bullet’, was also charged today for the same crime when he made his court appearance before Magistrate Rochelle Liverpool.
The 50-year-old daughter of the dead man along with Lewis were not required to enter a plea to the indictable charge and were both remanded to prison until June 21 when they are scheduled to return to court.
Bibi had confessed to orchestrating her father’s murder some eight years ago when she turned herself in at the Leonora Police Station, last Wednesday. She also implicated other persons in her father’s murder.
She, along with four other suspects had been arrested earlier last week. However, law enforcement officials continue to search for a fifth suspect in relation to the businessman’s murder which took place in 2008.
Habiboodean, 77, who was the owner of a gas station at Ruby, East Bank Essequibo had died at a hospital after being badly beaten in his home on February 15, 2008.
The dead businessman’s daughter, and his former employee, Terry Lewton, 38, of Vergenoegen, EBE, had been charged with the murder at that time, but the case was subsequently dismissed owing to insufficient evidence.
This cold case was reopened by investigators following a breakthrough a few weeks ago when one of the four persons arrested for the murder of Mohamed Munir, 75, and his wife, Bibi Jamila Munir, 69, who were burnt to death in their Good Hope, EBE home, said he had knowledge of Habiboodean’s death.
Lewis, a.k.a ‘Bullet’, during interrogation, told investigators that he was the hit-man behind Habiboodean’s murder. (Kristen Macklingam)
