2017 YIR: Top stories from January – February

The new year is just days away, so it’s time to reflect on the year that was in Cayman. 

The year 2017 got off to a tragic start as 49-year-old West Bay resident Dale Ebanks died in a new year’s day boating accident.

On 5 January, two firefighters were hospitalised and the Charles Kirkconnel Airport in Cayman Brac shut down after a fire truck flipped over on the runway.

The firefighters were OK, but the truck was totaled, forcing government to purchase another one at nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

On 6 January, police officers shot and killed an armed man in the Windsor Park area of George Town. Police say 34-year-old Jamaican Norval Barrett was armed during a pre-dawn raid.

16 January was the final day for would-be voters to register to vote in the 24 May election. In the end, 21,465 people did so.

On 19 January, the Anti-Corruption Commission arrested five people in a probe involving several immigration officers. It was the first of several separate arrests in an investigation that continues.

In late January, Chief Justice Anthony Smellie ruled the Office of the Premier did not have to hand over the Ritch Report on immigration to the Information Commissioner’s Office, bringing what the Premier described as “clarity” to the issue of legal privilege.

On 28 January, one man was killed on Water Course Road and a family taken hostage by the gunman after a domestic incident. Mark Seymour was shot dead. Police say William Ian Rivers was the triggerman.

The trial for former UCCI President Hassan Syed started in January. He was accused of bilking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the school.

In early February, one man was shot and another assaulted outside  Fete Nightclub. The trial just wrapped up in that incident, with two people being found guilty.

In late February, former track coach Ato Stephens was extradited to Cayman to face charges related to allegations he engaged in sexual acts with a teenage girl.

And the trial date was set for Celal Kildag, a man arrested off a cruise ship on a decades-old warrant from Turkey on accusations of terrorism.