‘Anaconda’ remanded on 12 counts of murder in Bartica slaughter

Nine months after the Bartica killings, a third man was remanded to prison yesterday after being charged with murdering 12 persons in February.
Dennis Williams known as ‘Anaconda’ of 135 Waterloo Street was not required to plead to 12 indictable counts of murder.

Williams was observed shaking his head while Magistrate Nyasha Williams- Hatmin read the charges yesterday at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.
It is alleged that on the night of February 17 at Bartica, Williams murdered nine civilians: Edwin Gilkes, Irving Ferreira, Ronald Gomes, Baldeo Singh, Dexter Adrian, Deonarine Singh, Abdool Yassin, Ashraf Khan, and Errol Thomas and three police officers: Ron Osborne, Zaheer Zakir and Shane Fredericks.
Williams’s lawyer Adrian Thompson said “the police have become over zealous” as to who was actually involved in the Bartica incident. He stated that “extreme measures” were used against Williams that forcefully made him confess to a matter he knew nothing about.

Thompson further posited that his client had several marks about his body which he said were the result of being “tortured and not just roughed-up” by the police.

Williams then raised his white t-shirt and displayed several bruises on his back and cigarette burn marks about his body. Thompson added that the police placed a black bag over Williams’s head in their quest to get a confession statement from him and it was under such circumstances that Williams eventually made a false confession.

Thompson then reasoned that his client should have never been “touched” by the police but only brought before the court on evidence that they had against him. He emphasized that his client was innocent, since, according to him, “persons don’t normally confess to things like that [Bartica massacre].”
Prosecutor Sherwin Mathews said he was not aware that Williams was tortured by the police but they are allowed to take “certain measures” against the accused in order to squeeze information out of him.

The magistrate subsequently ordered that Williams be remanded to prison and transferred the case to Court One for December 9.
On the night of February 17 at approximately 9.40 pm, some 20 gunmen attacked Bartica slaughtering one dozen people, including three policemen, during an hour-long strafing.

It was reported that the gunmen attacked the police station first, killing three policemen and freeing prisoners. They then took the vehicle assigned to the police station and went on a rampage, terrorising the community and murdering nine others. According to reports, the gunmen arrived in the area by boat and departed in similar fashion taking with them firearms they had grabbed from the police station and from a mining company.

Roger Simon, a 44-year-old miner and father of nine who is a resident of the community, was the first person charged with the 12 murders. He first appeared at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court on April 9 and then later at the Bartica Magistrate’s Court on May 14.

Clebert Reece called ‘Chi-chi’ of Lot 63 Barr Street, Albouystown, a 30-year-old miner who works in the Cuyuni area, was the second person charged but he made no statement to the court when he appeared before Magistrate Melissa Robertson on May 28.