– Home Ministry
The Home Affairs Ministry says that a work permit for an independent ballistics expert will be “favourably considered” once he lands in Guyana but the AFC’s Nigel Hughes while welcoming this move said that there is no guarantee that the integrity of the evidence recovered from the dead and injured thus far has not been compromised.
“I am disappointed that the information came one and a half month after the incident in Linden where we have not been assured (that) the integrity of evidence recovered from the dead and injured have not been compromised given the fact that I had written to the police long before they did anything”, Hughes told Stabroek News yesterday.
Hughes, an attorney, who is watching over the interest of the relatives of Shemroy Bouyea, Allan Lewis and Ron Somerset, who were shot dead near the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge on July 18, had written to acting Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell late last month requesting that United Kingdom firearm expert Dr Mark Robinson be facilitated.
Permission was being sought for Robinson to observe the ballistic tests and possibly conduct his own independent tests. Hughes was later referred to the Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee.
The letter dated August 23 which was sent to Hughes by the Minister stated “please be assured that so long as the Doctor is landed in Guyana by the immigration authorities, an application by him for a work permit would be favourably considered by the Ministry of Home Affairs”.
The letter was signed by K Lekhraj on behalf of the Permanent Secretary.
Hughes said that “we could only rely on what they hand to us. We have grave reservations of the integrity of the tests done”.
Police had said that they had to resort to using tear gas and later fired shotgun cartridges at protestors, after missiles were hurled at them—an account challenged by some of the injured and others present at the protest.
A post-mortem examination on the bodies of the three men determined that they were killed by live rounds and it was suggested that these were fired from handguns.
Brumell has said that a full-scale investigation is ongoing to determine who is culpable. Crime Chief Seelall Persaud, however, has noted that there are a lot of gaps in the investigation and more so only four shotgun cartridges were found to be missing following an audit of the ammunition taken to the scene that day.
He said the indication is that those cartridges unaccounted for were used during the protest.
