The shooting of Commissioner of Insurance Maria van Beek by a gunman last month may have been to settle an old score relating to a local insurance company, according to a reliable source.
Stabroek News was told that those associated with the insurance company wanted to kill van Beek when they hired a gunman to shoot her on the morning of April 15.
The source noted that there was a theory that the woman was shot because she had been appointed Judicial Manager of the troubled CLICO (Guyana), however, it was strongly believed that the perpetrators used that situation as a cover to settle an old score relating to the insurance company.
Meanwhile, acting Crime Chief Lewis Crawford told Stabroek News that while the police had been continuing their investigation there had been no new break in the shooting. He also said that the lawmen had been unable to establish a motive for the shooting, but reiterated that the investigation was ongoing.
Substantive Crime Chief Seelall Persaud had earlier told this newspaper that the lawmen knew the identity of the man who had shot van Beek.
“We have the identity of the shooter and we are looking for him…” Persaud had told Stabroek News. He had said the police had searched the man’s house and other places where he was known to frequent, but he had not been found.
According to Persaud, the police had been able to identify the suspect from information they had received, and they were doing all that was necessary to apprehend the shooter.
That item of information from Persaud had been seen as the first real break in the shooting of van Beek, which shocked the nation.
However, when this newspaper contacted Persaud some time later and asked why the police had not issued an arrest warrant for the man since they knew his identity, he said that could not be done as all they had was information.
“What we have is information which we have to turn into evidence; we have information on who did the shooting but we have to arrest and place them on an identity parade,” Persaud said.
Police had arrested two men following the shooting, but when they were placed on identification parades they were not identified and the lawmen were obliged to release them.
The lawmen had also interviewed persons in the insurance industry in the course of their investigations into the shooting.
But Persaud had said that the police had received no new information that would warrant the arrest of any of those persons.
Stabroek News understands that the police interviewed those persons in an effort to find the motive behind the attempt on van Beek’s life.
The gunman had approached van Beek’s car and fired a single shot just days after she had given a report to the High Court in her capacity as Judicial Manager of CLICO (Guyana). The bullet hit her in the chest and she had to be hospitalised for several days.
Van Beek secured an order from the court in February to place CLICO (Guyana) under judicial management prior to the winding up of the company; she was also appointed Judicial Manager. The decision came following the move by the Bahamas Supreme Court to order the liquidation of CLICO (Bahamas). CLICO (Bahamas) held 53% of the assets of CLICO (Guyana) at the end of 2007.
According to reports, van Beek was stuck in a long line of traffic at the junction of Lombard and Leopold streets during a heavy downpour, when a gunman walked up to her vehicle and fired a single shot through the driver’s side window. He then jumped on a waiting motorcycle parked on Leopold Street and fled.
