Head of the Guyana Police Force’s Criminal Investigation Department Seelall Persaud made an astonishing announcement last week. He admitted that, since everyone who had been charged for the murders of Minister of Agriculture Satyadeow Sawh and others were now dead, the police would have to withdraw their case. This disclosure followed the strange death in custody of David ‘Biscuit’ Leander from “undetermined” causes last month. He was the only surviving accused person charged with the murders.
From the outset, the investigation ran off the rails. Political spokespersons, aiming at maximizing mileage from the tragedy, attempted to link the La Bonne Intention massacre in which the minister was killed to all the major crimes of the day − the theft of assault rifles from the Guyana Defence Force, the taped telephone conversation involving a former Commissioner of Police, opposition political parties and the then approaching 2006 general elections. One official went so far as to claim to “know who the criminals” were.
President Bharrat Jagdeo used his oration at the minister’s funeral to excoriate the police force and ordered it to take “maximum measures” to find the assassins. The security forces then swooped on Agricola, Buxton and Bare Root villages, searching houses and rounding up the usual suspects by the score − all of whom had to be released without being charged.
The police then issued a raft of wanted bulletins for several men − Orlando ‘Bullet’ Andrews, Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles, Richard ‘Chucky’ Daniels, Troy Dick, Anthony ‘John Kirby’ Heywood, David ‘Biscuit’ Leander and Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins. They seemed to be clueless about the identity of the other suspects − ‘Sonny’ of Agricola and ‘Cash’ and ‘Not Nice’ of Buxton − and could give only give their assumed aliases.
Then the killings started. Most of the identifiable wanted men were hunted down and shot dead. As if to link others to the crime, the police also claimed, rather ludicrously, that Sawh’s expired Republic Bank Visa Card, Canadian Bank Gold Card and Bwee Miles Cards, were found 26 months after the LBI massacre on two persons whom they killed in the bush near to Aroaima.
President Jagdeo, soon after the minister’s assassination, undertook to seek foreign assistance to track down the murderers. Canada, the USA and the UK were asked for help but there has been no indication that any was given. The Canadian High Commissioner at the time suggested that the Guyana Government requested help from Canada only “generally” to strengthen the security forces rather than “specifically” to help in the investigation into the assassination.
Leander was in trouble from the time of his arrest in October 2007. At his first appearance in court on November 8, he was in obvious pain and could hardly walk. Bodily injuries were visible. Counsel claimed that he had been tortured while in custody and Justice Jainarayan Singh, who presided at a hearing, ordered him to be taken to a doctor of the family’s choosing. It was on the basis of credible allegations of torture that the magistrate conducting the preliminary inquiry ruled that Leander’s “purported oral confession” was not “free and voluntary” and was inadmissible. Within days of the magistrate’s ruling, Leander was a dead man.
A government minister has been assassinated. The police went on a shooting spree and eliminated every suspect except one who is now dead. The state has been unable to prosecute a culprit. Is there any wonder that Sawh’s relatives, fed up with the incompetent investigations, filed writs against the Guyana Government claiming negligence by the Guyana Police Force and seeking damages of over $4 million for the minister’s death?
