THE three men captured after the recent pirate attacks on fishermen at sea were remanded to prison when they appeared in Court yesterday, on several charges of robbery under arms.

Before Acting Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry were Richard Mangal, 26, of Lot 44 Pigeon Island, East Coast Demerara; Eon Sampson, 26, of Mocha/Arcadia, East Bank Demerara and Gary Joseph, 42, of Barima River, North West District.
Particulars of the indictable offences with which they are charged said:
* on September 8, at La Bonne Intention (LBI), on the vessel ‘Sir Leonard’, within the territorial sea of Guyana, armed with handguns, they robbed Jamir Khan of one boat engine among other things with a total value of $2.3M, property of Leonard Jettoo;
* between September 7 and 8, at LBI, they stole one fishing vessel ,valued $400,000, property of Munilall;
* on September 8, at LBI, within the territorial sea of Guyana, armed with a handgun and aboard fishing boat ‘Zabeeda’, they robbed crew members of items worth a total of $510,000, property of Mohamed Odeen;
* the same day, in Pomeroon, within the territorial sea of Guyana, armed with a handgun, they robbed crew members of items valued $360,000, property of Shameer Saffie;
* also on that day, in Pomeroon, within the territorial sea of Guyana, armed with a handgun, on fishing vessel ‘Naresh’, they robbed crew members of items worth $616,500, property of Vibert Singh;
* the same day, too, being armed with a handgun, they robbed crew members of items priced at $1.9M, property of Anjanie Singh;
* the very day, as well, within the territorial sea of Guyana, armed with handguns and on fishing vessel ‘Annan’, they robbed crew members of items worth $686,000, property of Ramnarine and
* within the territorial sea of Guyana, armed with handgun and on fishing vessel ‘Ramdeen’, they robbed crew members of items valued $240,000, property of Nandlall Gopaul.

Different locations
Police Inspector Stephen Telford, prosecuting, informed the Court that the virtual complaints in the cases employed crew members who were on their fishing vessels at different locations when the accused confronted them with guns.
The Prosecutor said the accused ordered the virtual complainants and their crew members to hand over all the items and then made good their escape but, on receipt of information, the Police, later,  went to the home of another person who is also implicated in the piracy and recovered some of the booty.
The Prosecutor requested arrest warrants for two suspects but the magistrate said she cannot do so until the investigating officer swears to the information that the two were in his custody before escaping.
However, the Prosecutor said the trio admitted to the offences in caution statements and he asked the articles recovered be handed over to the virtual complainants.
The cases will be called, again, on September 18.