Police have visited the father of Bonny Harry and taken a statement from him in relation to reports that that his son’s cellular phone which was in his possession at the time of his death at Lindo Creek is in use.
Winston Harry told Stabroek News that last week he received a call from a police officer in Georgetown who informed him that ranks from Essequibo would visit his home. He said shortly after two policemen visited him and he gave them a statement; however, he pointed out that it was based on hearsay information since it was another of his sons who had called the phone and found that someone was using it.
The man said he was not optimistic that anything would come out of the investigation, and also indicated that he had given up hope of ever receiving any information on the DNA samples taken in July by the Jamaican police officers.
“Life is what you make it…” the man observed, although he also said it would have been good to bury something from his son.
Bonny Harry’s brother, Eldon, had told Stabroek News that since his brother’s death he had frequently dialled the number and it always had gone straight to a voicemail recording with his brother’s voice. However, when he dialled the number two weeks ago, a man with a funny sounding accent had answered the phone and said: “I am Bonny Harry but I don’t speak English.” Eldon Harry said he had then asked the person his location and had been given the name of a hotel he said was in Brazil. “He give me the name of the hotel but to tell you the truth I can’t remember. I told him that I was coming to meet him and he said, ‘okay,’ but I was just bluffing. There was a lot of noise like children in the background and then the phone cut off,” the man had related.
It is not the first time reports have emerged that cellular phones which had reportedly been in the possession of miners at Lindo Creek were being used.
The report that Harry’s phone was in use raised red flags after a similar report had been made about the phone that was in the possession of another dead miner, Dax Arokium. His phone was reactivated days after the burnt bodies of the miners were found. Several calls were reportedly made from that number telephone records have shown, and police later requested records from the phone company.
More than two months ago it was revealed that Dax Arokium’s cellular phone was in use. Moments before he left Kwakwani to go into Lindo Creek on the morning of June 5, 2008 he had called a friend asking for credit to be put on his cell phone account. The police subsequently said they had arrested three persons who might have knowledge “of a cell phone with a SIM card of a similar number” and they were being questioned. They were later released.
Harry was the manager of the ill-fated Lindo Creek mining camp, where on June 2 his burnt remains awere found along with those of Dax Arokium, Cecil Arokium, Clifton Wong, Nigel Torres, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes and Lancelot Lee.
Since the gruesome discovery, Arokium has maintained that he believed the men were killed by elements in the Joint Services, while the police have said that all evidence thus far points to the now dead Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins’ gang. After the miners were killed, their bodies and belongings were burnt and no trace of diamonds was found, although it was clear that they had completed a ‘wash down.’
