Execution attempt on auto-dealer…My

husband needs to see a psychiatrist –

Wife

“…I think I am still dreaming”- Brother-in-law Patricia Sanasie, the woman who is being accused along with her brother, Vishnu Persaud, of paying $6M to kill her husband, Deokaran Sanasie, said yesterday, that her husband has financial problems. She added that she believes he is “messed up.”

Shot businessman, Deokaran Sanasie

The woman made this statement during a press conference at her Lot 130 Atlantic Gardens, East Coast Demerara home. The press conference was attended by Sanasie’s three daughters, Romona, Budeka and Natalie, along with Persaud. Around 18:30hrs last Friday, Sanasie, the owner of Ram’s Auto Spares, was having “a drink” with some friends in Alberttown when he was shot three times about the body by two gunmen on a motorcycle. One day after the shooting, Vishnu Persaud and Patricia Sanasie were taken into police custody. This was after investigators managed obtained a recorded telephone conversation with an older brother of the two suspects, informing Deokaran Sanasie that his wife (Patricia) and her brother had paid to get him killed. However yesterday, Sanasie and her brother refuted what their older brother said. “We don’t know what he is talking about. That is a blatant lie. He (The elder brother) said that mommy knew of this. How can you lie on a 64-year-old woman like that? Right now my mother is preparing an affidavit of support for us,” Persaud said. According to Patricia Sanasie, her husband is out of his mind. “Reading the newspaper and being accused of such a thing is terrible. Being in prison is terrible. I know nothing what is going on. The killers are out there and my husband should focus on finding them. He is holding innocent people.” Recalling what happened two Fridays ago, the woman who has been married to the auto dealer for the past 29 years, said, “That morning my daughter asked me to come to her school because she is leaving the country very soon and I don’t normally go. I went, and then I collected her because she said she wasn’t doing any work because of Mashramani. I then went and collected my small daughter. I then called my husband and asked him what he wanted us to do and he told me to take them to eat.” The woman added, “I took them to the Princess Hotel and Casino. While there he called me about six times to ask me where I was and what I was doing. When I was leaving the hotel, I called and he tell me that he will meet us up. When we near reach the place where he wanted us to reach up, I asked my daughter to call him and tell him we are nearby.

From left: Vishnu Persaud, Patricia Sanasie and her three daughters.

“He was on speaker and he said, ‘Oh me God, Oh me God, Patsy meh just get shoot.’ I said what? And I started to scream and I almost crashed.” She said that she immediately went to Alberttown and then went to the hospital where she met her husband. The woman said that she had no idea that she would have been fingered in the attack on her husband. In the tape which this newspaper managed to obtain, the older brother of the duo was heard telling the businessman that his wife had organized the hit-men and that Persaud assisted her in the plot. “Mommy (the suspects’ mother) hear and she tell me and she started to cry. Right away I call Vishnu and ask him not to kill that man because he is a good man. I begged him for four hours. I tell him if dey know wha dey ah do with dey life. I tell him if dey touch that man, dem gun go jail, and if anything happen I will talk,” was heard in an extract from the tape in which the brother informed the businessman of the plot. Mr. Sanasie had told Kaieteur News that two days prior to the attack, his wife told him that they weren’t happy with each other and wanted them to separate, but Patricia Sanasie said she had no such conversation with her husband. “No! That is a lie. I never told him that. I think my husband needs to see a doctor. I think he is messed up.” Kaieteur News was told that a senior official in the police force heard of the plot to kill the businessman two weeks before the incident and sent three of his ranks to question his wife. Again, Patricia Sanasie said nothing like that happened. The woman said that the last time she spoke with a police officer was late last year when her husband took her to the police station because she sold his generator. “He went away and he didn’t lef’ any money with me, so I had no choice but to sell it. When he came back from the States, he carried me to the police station and the police told him that I am his wife and that it is not a crime.” The woman said that her relationship with her husband was like any normal husband and wife relationship. “It was loving, then we quarrel, then loving again.” Vishnu Persaud said that some time last year, he and his brother-in-law had planned to invest in a business and that is the reason why he sold his property in USA three weeks ago. Persaud, who returned to Guyana hours after the businessman was shot, is being accused of selling his property to pay for the execution of his brother-in-law. “I booked my ticket two weeks before my brother-in-law was shot and my house was the only thing I had, and I had to arrange money to invest in the business,” Vishnu Persaud said. Asked why his brother would want to accuse him of the shooting, Persaud said, “I love my brother-in-law. We had no problem; but 10 years ago, my sister had called and tell me that she want to come by me with the kids because she is divorcing him, and I agreed. He blames me, because I took my three nieces and his wife at my house. Investigations into the shooting are ongoing.