Point Fortin arson suspect arrested

POLICE have arrested a 49-year-old woman suspected of setting fire to a store and a house in Point Fortin earlier this week. Investigators said she was found with an apparatus used to smoke cocaine in her possession.

The woman, who lives in Point Fortin, was arrested on Tuesday.

Police said while the woman is a suspect in both fires, they are still compiling information about the two incidents before a decision is made on laying charges.

However, the woman has been charged with making threats. She was taken before a Point Fortin magistrate to answer to the answer to the charge of making threats by burning and possession of an apparatus for smoking cocaine.

She was also charged with refusing to give police her fingerprints.

After the charges were read to her, she was refused bail and remanded into police custody.

On Sunday, an abandoned house was set on fire at Handel Street in Mahaica. The house was destroyed. A  day later Fashion TT business place at Market Street in Point Fortin was burnt down.

On both occasions, eyewitnesses saw a woman running from the scene of the fire.

Point Fortin police are investigating.

In an unrelated incident, bandits broke into the home of a retired doctor and robbed him of cash. Police said the incident happened at about 3.15 am on Wednesday.

The 87-year-old man was at his Palmiste home when the masked men broke into the house. His maid was also there. He later told police that the men, who had guns, ordered him to hand over money. They then escaped in a white Nissan station wagon parked nearby.

San Fernando CID are investigating.