Jean LeBlanc, the Canadian man wounded when gunmen shot and killed Ricardo Rodrigues at the Guyana Motor Racing and Sports Club (GMR&SC) on Monday, wants to be urgently medivaced out of Guyana.
Rodrigues, 40, was the clear target of the attack, in which LeBlanc and two other persons were shot.
LeBlanc, 42, told Stabroek News yesterday that while he has been receiving “great” care and treatment at the Georgetown Public Hospital, where he has been a patient since the shooting, he wants to “go home and be cared for properly.”
In addition, he stated that police ranks had taken his passport and his wallet with all of his credit cards and no one has since visited to inform if or when it will be returned.
“I am very frustrated and daily it gets worse. I can’t explain my frustrations enough to you… I can’t leave the country on a regular flight, because I can’t sit and am still weak, so I guess I will have to be medivaced but until I get my passport nothing can be done… The police took my passport and credit cards and everything and no one from there has come to say when they will be returned,” LeBlanc said.
Questioned as to the purpose of his stay in Guyana and the reason for him being at the GMR&SC, LeBlanc said he was on vacation. He added that he went to the GMR&SC after a taxi driver who was chauffeuring him around the capital recommended it, as they were passing to go into the National Park, to have “some cold beers.”
The Canadian said he is also worried about the daily US$128 he has to pay the hotel where he was checked into when he was shot. “I have to pay the hotel every day I am here [at the hospital] but not using the room because my stuff is there. I want to get that out of the way but everything comes back to my passport and credit cards and me not being able to go anywhere physically,” he noted.
When the hotel was contacted by Stabroek News, an official there informed that LeBlanc’s requests cannot be granted until documentation is provided. LeBlanc said he will send necessary paperwork and have his luggage transferred to him in hospital.
LeBlanc said he has been visited by the Canadian authorities, who took information from him and promised they would be looking into his welfare. He added that persons, including media personnel, promised to help him get assistance from his relatives overseas but to no avail. “If you know you know, if you don’t, you don’t, just admit that,” he said.
Rodrigues was an associate of convicted drug lord Roger Khan, who is currently serving a sentence in a US jail. Over the years until the time of his death, he had been implicated in drugs and gun related crimes but was never charged.
Rodrigues was killed days after turning himself in to police, who had issued a wanted bulletin for him in relation to an arms find at Lethem. At Tabatinga, Lethem, police found four automatic rifles along with four magazines and 389 rounds of 7.62×39 calibre ammunition; six M-16 rifles along with two magazines and 74 matching rounds; two shrapnel hand grenades; an Icon VHF radio set; an Icon hand-held radio set; and a roll of camouflage material on October 1. Police had issued wanted bulletins for Rodrigues and his cousin, Clive King, after the find. Rodrigues surrendered and was released after habeas corpus proceedings were filed on his behalf. King has been in hiding since the discovery and it is believed he fled the country to Brazil.
Asked about whether any of the guns recovered was linked to any crime in Guyana, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud said that analysis of the weapons is still being undertaken. Questioned about the e-trace, he said that some information was received but that he could not release to any of that information at this time.
Rodrigues was cremated on Friday after a private funeral at the Brickdam Cathedral.
