The Tribune

• Mother says victim questioned by police in voice notes probe

• Oral Roberts now third man linked to robbery to be murdered

• Victim allegedly told by police not to talk to any other officers

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

A THIRD man connected to November’s $1.5m robbery of a bank security car –– the incident at the centre of a major unresolved police corruption controversy –– has been killed.

Police did not give many details last night after Oral Roberts, 34, was killed in the Fox Hill park area.

Although the scene was cordoned off, the victim’s body was left lying in the road, exposed to the public for longer than usual. 

The man's mother, Mizpah Roberts, told reporters that police questioned him last week as part of their investigation involving Chief Superintendent Michael Johnson, the Central Investigations Department (CID) head who has taken garden leave as police probe matters related to voice notes purporting to capture a quid-pro-quo arrangement involving him, a lawyer and two murdered men.

Michael Fox Jr and Dino Smith, two men killed in May and January, were suspects in that robbery, which was discussed on the voice notes, but they were not charged with a crime. Roberts and his co- accused, Akeil Holmes, were charged in November with stealing more than $1m from the bank security car at an airport.

Roberts was wearing an ankle bracelet.

His family was preparing to celebrate the birthday of his only son before he was killed.

Ms Roberts said she and her son were sitting on a porch when he left to buy her a sandwich from Subway. She said he returned home and was eating Oreos before he was shot.

She claimed officers who questioned her son last week warned him not to speak to other police officers.

She said they told him: “Bey, if any police car try stop you, don’t stop.”

“I’m not afraid to say that police killed my child,” she said, adding that her son feared for his life.

Sylvens Metayer, a man who initially released the explosive voice notes, had claimed without incontrovertible proof that police officers disclose electronic monitoring information about people to criminals so they can be targeted.

Ms Roberts said after her son heard this, he begged his lawyer to get the bracelet off his foot.

The status of the investigation into matters related to the voice notes is unclear. The Royal Bahamas Police Force has asked for help from the United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police, but police have not said whether UK officers are helping with the probe.