PARAMARIBO--Police have remained very sketchy about an explosion that destroyed a car in west Paramaribo Wednesday morning.
“A car was blown up with a projectile Wednesday morning in the Munder neighbourhood,” was all authorities reported on the case up until Friday morning. Other sources are saying that it concerned a military grenade that was thrown into the vehicle, as part of an attempted assassination in the drug circuits.
Police said the owner, whose last initial was given as H., reported to them that he was startled awake by the explosion around 2:40am. When he went outside to check, he found that his gold coloured car had been blown to shreds. Flames were devouring its remains. Its roof had landed in a neighbour’s front yard. There were no personal injuries. Firefighters were on the scene quickly to extinguish the fire.
Police say it has not yet been determined what “projectile” was used to blow up the vehicle, but that the case is being investigated by the Forensics Department. They have impounded the remains of the car.
But while police remain tight-lipped about the case, other sources are suggesting that the explosion was linked to the assassination Sunday night of Franklin Waterval.
The owner of Restaurant Sabroso at Afiabastraat in northern Paramaribo, was sitting in his Mercedes-AMG G 63 6x6, outside his restaurant around 2:00am, when another vehicle pulled up and shots were fired at him. The 47-year-old businessman who went by the nickname Brielle, was struck by several bullets, including one to the head. He slumped in the front seat and died before the ambulance arrived on the scene.
A second man who was standing next to Waterval’s car was also hit, but his life is not in danger police have said. He remains in hospital. Police say they have no trace yet of the men who opened fire, nor of the dark coloured car with tinted windows they did the drive by from.
Waterval caught the attention of many a few years ago when he imported the massive six-wheel Mercedes AMG to Suriname. Second hand, the car is worth more than US $900,000.
