A British hotelier was shot dead in a suspected “targeted attack” on the Caribbean island of St Lucia. Donnie McKinnon, 51, moved to the island in 2009 where he managed the Soufrière Estate, a 2,000-acre former working plantation. Peter Jackson, 72, a close friend of Mckinnon was also injured in what one source described as a “targeted shooting”. Mr McKinnon, originally from Lochaber in the Scottish highlands was in a relationship with a local woman, The Times reports.
Mr Jackson is also married to a local woman after being on the island for more than 30 years as a community activist and former director of the Soufrière Regional Development Foundation.
One local source told the St Lucia Times the pair were the “only white people there”.
They said: “It did not look like a random attack. The other customers intervened before Peter could be killed.”
A resident who lives nearby said: “This may well have been a targeted shooting. The killer was wearing a mask when he entered the bar and started shooting. . . [He] then made his way on foot, which is pretty brazen considering that they were people around who could have chased after him.”
Another said: “Everyone knew them. They were community people. This is sad.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said it was urgently seeking more information from the government in St Lucia.
A spokesperson for the local council said there are “trying to ascertain a motive behind this dreadful killing”, questioning whether it could have been “racially motivated”.
A local resident who gave her name as Lena said there had been “some resentment building” that Mr. McKinnon, a white foreigner, had been employed as a manager at the estate.
“The job that he was doing can be done by any amount of local people,” she said.
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Another British expat, who lived close to Mr McKinnon was killed in August.
Diana Theodore, 72, an environmental campaigner, was tied up and stuffed underneath her bed next to her dead dog in Choiseul.
