The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) earlier this week advised the police to charge Presidential Advisor Odinga Lumumba over an elections day incident in which he is alleged to have shoved a Presiding Officer and destroyed a phone belong to an elections observer.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that it has been recommended that Lumumba be charged with assault and provoking a breach of the peace.
Efforts to contact senior police officials to ascertain when the charges will be laid against Lumumba were unsuccessful.
Onika Beckles had said that she refused a PPP/C observer, who had no identification, entry into her polling station at Lot 455 Aubrey Barker Street, South Ruimveldt, and moments later Lumumba turned up with three other men.
Beckles said that the politician began to verbally abuse a policewoman who was securing the gate and when she went to him to explain what had transpired Lumumba allegedly pushed her into a grill door. During the commotion, Beckles said, Lumumba grabbed the cellular phone an observer was using to record the episode and threw it to the ground.
The woman later obtained a medical from the Georgetown Hospital, which showed she had indeed sustained an injury to the back. A report was then made to the police.
Lumumba, in his defence, had said that the episode was an accident and that he had pushed the woman to get past her since as a party candidate he had a right to be in the polling station.
He said that he was unaware that the woman sustained an injury. He has since replaced the observer’s damaged cell phone.
Beckles has since sued Lumumba for $200, 000 in damages over the incident.
