Just over a week has passed since attempts were made to justify the promotion of two cops found liable of torturing a teenage boy and despite an outpouring of condemnation and mounting pressure for the decision to be reversed, both the acting Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud and the Police Service Commis-sion (PSC) are yet to disclose their plan of action.
The names of Sergeant Narine Lall and Constable Mohanram Dolai were included on a promotion list which was released to the media on January 2nd. Lall was promoted to the rank of Inspector by the PSC based on a recommendation from Persaud, while it was Persaud himself who promoted Dolai to the rank of Corporal.
The duo was held culpable for torturing the boy in 2009 by pouring methylated spirits on his genitals and setting him alight while he was in custody at the Leonora Police Station as part of a murder investigation.
An investigation by the police’s Office of Profes-sional Responsibility (OPR) had found that the two policemen injured and tortured the teen. In awarding $6.5M compensation, after the filing of a civil suit, High Court Judge Roxane George noted that the ranks were liable for torture.
So far it is only the PSC that has spoken on the issue. Its Chairman Omesh Satyanand had said in defence of the decision that Lall had an unblemished record apart from the torture and he had pointed out that someone should not be punished indefinitely for a crime after already being punished. The punishment in Lall’s case was interdiction from duty and half month’s pay until the criminal case came to an end. He has not been found guilty of the crime as the criminal matter was thrown out after the boy and other witnesses failed to turn up to testify. They were reports that the witnesses were paid to stay away from court.
Persaud, on the other hand, has not addressed the issue and could not be reached.
The Rights of the Child Commission (RCC) is the latest body to speak out on the issue, calling for the immediate rescinding of the promotions and noting that the ranks’ elevation is not in the best interest of law and order or the ongoing reform of the force.
Stabroek News made several unsuccessful attempts on Saturday to reach Satyanand for a reaction to this and to query whether the commission had any plans to review its decision to promote Lall. He could not be reached.
Among the questions that still have to be addressed by all parties involved is why the two were reinstated into the force, given that they were found liable not only by a court and the police’s own investigate arm but also the Ministry of Home Affairs. The RCC said the promotions will only serve to further “aggravate and entrench” international concerns about local police excesses, which were highlighted at the recent United Nations Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review in Switzerland.
It was stated too that the promotion of these two ranks would undermine the process of reform and will aid in corroding the public’s faith in the police to effectively service and protection, actions which its mandate stipulates.
“These promotions are not in the interest of the [Guyana Police Force], and as a significant corollary, not in the interest of law and order,” the RCC added, while saying it was calling, at minimum, for the immediate withdrawal of the two ranks’ promotion.
The RCC called the explanation given as unconvincing, while noting that it viewed the promotion with alarm.
Satyanand had previously said, “We should not hold something against someone because they would have committed something wrong… even though you have served the time for it and I think the public should understand that. From our record, he (Lall) has been an outstanding policeman for over two decades and we have taken that into consideration.”
Meanwhile, Senior Counsel Brynmor Pollard, in recent a letter to Stabroek News, questioned how matters such as torture could be put aside.
Noting that he read of the promotion with “a sense of incredulity and then one of horror,” he said that Guyana became a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment on January 25, 1988.
According to Pollard, the International Law Commission of the United Nations General Assembly has specifically included torture in its definition of crimes against humanity. “I could not believe what I was reading. Two state agents were found liable in relation to torturing a teenager in their custody by a court of law, conduct amounting to a breach of an international convention to which Guyana is a party and in fact, a breach of international criminal law, and a service commission subsequently promotes one of them and blithely dismisses this as of no consequence,” he noted.
He stated that the situation being confronted in this instance is that the members of a constitutional commission dismissed a breach of an international convention and rewarded one of the perpetrators of the act.
“It is difficult to imagine how these persons remained as members of the Guyana Police Force, much less won promotion. One must now question the judgment of the commissioners who could blithely dismiss such a serious criminal act as one of no consequence. And one of them by virtue of his office also sits on the Judicial Service Commission! How unfortunate,” he wrote.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon has said Cabinet approved of the promotion by the PSC. Luncheon said, “I think there was a satisfaction with the commission’s contention that the law had taken its course… The disciplinary actions had been implemented and there was no need to deny… these policemen promotion.”
Subsequently, Attorney General Anil Nandlall, in a statement which was apparently made to counter concerns that the government supported the decision to promote the two policemen, said Luncheon’s comment pertained to the process and not the merits of the decision.
Nandlall said the notion being peddled in some sections of the media that government participated, authorised or concurred with the promotions are “simply without any foundation.” He said the view of the government expressed through Luncheon, “related to the procedure in respect of the promotions and was not a comment in respect of the merits or demerits of the promotions. In short, It was confined to the decision making process and not the decision.”
