A teenager is fearing for his life, having escaped from kidnappers who he said tortured and threatened to kill him.
The 18-year-old Central Kingston resident visited the offices of The Sunday Gleaner yesterday morning. His body was covered with scars and bandages, which he said were inflicted by a known Central Kingston drug dealer.
The young man, who after contemplation, asked that his name be withheld from the story, said the drug dealer, who was detained by the police on Friday night, threatened to kill him if he didn't give him information on a robbery that had occurred in the Central Kingston area.
He said he was accosted and tied up by the men along East Street on Friday evening. The men, he said, told him they were taking him to the Hellshire beach in St. Catherine to kill him if he didn't say what he knew about a robbery that had taken place.
"Dem a ask mi fi tell them who inna mi community teif something. Is like them want me tell them things weh mi no know 'bout. If mi a go dead mi woulda like know weh mi a dead fa," said the distraught 18-year-old whose eyes, at times welled up with tears.
With hands tied behind his back by a piece of wire he said he was made to sit in the backseat of a car between two men. One of the men in the backseat was the drug dealer who, while sipping on a bottle of alcohol, inflicted cuts and stabs all over his body.
He said he escaped in the vicinity of the Petcom petrol station in Portmore, St. Catherine by diving, head first, through the window of the car.
The citizens who saw him, called the Portmore police who turned the matter over to the Central Police since the alleged drug dealer and the teenager are from the Central Kingston area. Detective Radcliffe Marsh of the Central Kingston CIB confirmed the incident and said the accused and another man were detained by the police on Friday night.
"The Portmore police informed us of the incident and we accosted the men who were travelling in the car described by the police. They are being detained pending further investigations...the allegations are very serious, kidnapping is a very serious offence. They will have to do an identification parade," Det. Marsh said.
