Woman accuses police of murdering husband

The woman who police rescued from her kidnapper this week is now accusing police of murdering the man who held her captive in a house in La Brea in South Trinidad for a week.

Earlier this week police stormed a house where Giselle Balkaran-Phillip was held against her will by her husband, Andre "Rabbit" Phillip. The man had taken the woman from her mother's home.

Police say when they stormed the house to rescue the woman her husband fired at them. 

Read the story: Police kill kidnapper, free woman



However the woman is saying that is not true. She told local media police murdered the man she loved, adding that he had no weapon.

Police have denied that and claim that they recovered a .38 revolver from Phillip. Senior police officers said the suspect fired at the officers who responded. Investigators were responding to a report the woman was being held captive at the house, police said.

A police report on the woman's abduction last week said two masked men took Giselle at gunpoint from her mother's home. One of the men was identified as her husband.

The newspaper report said police and relatives made contact with the couple by cell phone and that Phillip promised to surrender and release his wife. The couple's daughter, Nikifa Phillip, 19, had stated earlier that her mother was an abused wife, the paper stated.

However she is standing by her mother's story and is accusing the police of killing her father.

"My father was murdered by the policemen. He had no gun and he was ready to give up himself. My mother said she and my father were lying on a bed watching television when they heard two sounds like gunshots."

He told the paper mother begged police not to shoot. "They shot him in the mouth and the bullet went through his head. Then the police dragged my mother outside. An officer went back inside and shot Rabbit in the chest and hand," she said.

Nikifa insisted that her father did not hurt her mother. "He loved my mother, he would not hurt her. He took her to the bushes and begged her to come back home. 

"Then they went by one of his relatives' house in La Brea and they were staying there. He treated her really good. But he was prepared to die. He wanted back his family and he died trying," Nikifa said.

"Rabbit", who had several previous convictions, was pronounced dead at the Point Fortin District Hospital on Wednesday afternoon.