Jury Convicts – By Latrishka Thomas
Jury Convicts Harrigan Nigel
The wait was six years. The verdict, when it came, took seconds to deliver.
Saleim Harrigan has been found guilty of the murder of senior Customs officer Nigel Christian — the man dragged from his McKinnons home at gunpoint in broad daylight while his mother watched in horror. His two co-accused, Wayne Thomas and Lasean Bully, were acquitted.
The nine-member jury — five women and four men — returned their unanimous verdicts just after 7:20pm on Monday, following more than five hours of deliberation. They had been sent out at 1:55pm after Justice Rajiv Persaud spent more than four hours summing up the case, and briefly returned around 6pm to request more time before delivering their final decision. Harrigan, 35, now awaits sentencing.
For Thomas, acquittal did not mean immediate freedom — he was returned to prison on an outstanding matter. Bully, however, was told he was free to go. He needed no second invitation. Before the words had barely settled in the courtroom, he was on his feet, moving hurriedly toward the exit. By the time anyone thought to look, he was nowhere in sight.
The verdict closes a chapter on one of Antigua and Barbuda’s most chilling crimes.
On the afternoon of July 10, 2020, Christian was seized from his home by two masked men dressed in military camouflage and a third wearing black clothing marked “police.” His mother stood helpless as they forced her son away — one of the men turning a weapon on her when she cried out. Christian’s body was found later that same day on a dirt road in Thibou’s. He had been shot dead.
The killing sent shockwaves across the country and triggered a lengthy investigation that brought all three men before the court in April 2021. The trial itself began on February 19 of this year and ran for more than two months, drawing on FBI forensic and cellular mapping evidence, surveillance footage, and fierce disputes over police integrity and whether evidence had been planted.
At the heart of the prosecution’s case was a driver who told the court he had transported the three accused on the day of the killing, watching them scale the fence at Christian’s home, abduct him at gunpoint, and drive away in his truck. The witness said he followed behind in a rented car, later discovered Christian’s body, and was subsequently contacted by the accused to collect them. He told the court that Harrigan had revealed a well-known businessman had ordered the killing, with the contract arranged through an inmate at His Majesty’s Prison.
FBI cellular data placed the phone of Harrigan and the driver at locations consistent with that account. FBI forensic DNA evidence placed Harrigan’s DNA on gloves recovered at Cassada Gardens and on blood-stained overalls found at Perry Bay. Thomas was identified as the dominant contributor to a shirt recovered at the same location.
The jury rejected those arguments, at least as they related to Harrigan.
Harrigan will be sentenced on June 19. For Nigel Christian’s family, after six years of waiting, there is at last a measure of justice.
