Dear Editor,
I want to thank Alana Seebarran-Ramson for making public, her statement to the Police. It has shed light on a number of issues about which the public was in the dark regarding the now infamous fatal high speed chase. It has confirmed my worst fears that SOCU is operating with an unknown, vastly different and perhaps sinister remit. I was instrumental in the establishment of this unit. Its remit was to investigate reports and information passed to it by the Financial Intelligence Unit. It was supposed to be part of Guyana’s AML/CFT apparatus. It had no other mandate. Its officers were supposed to be investigators, accountants, lawyers and other technical personnel sworn in as police officers to confer them with Police powers in law, in order to carry out investigations into allegations and suspicions of money-laundering and terrorism. It was supposed to be a civilian law enforcement authority, staffed with civilians to carry out civilian investigations. The Guyana Defence Force had no role to play in this unit. It appears as if this Unit has metamorphosed into something radically different. Why was Brassington’s house being watched? Why were his children or those believed to be his children, or Mrs Ramson Jnr, hounded like criminals? Are they suspected of money laundering or terrorism? If not, what is the current mandate of SOCU? Why was an army officer part of a SOCU operation? Why the President wants no investigation into a matter in which three citizens died, unnaturally? When he was the Opposition Leader he moved several Motions in the Parliament calling for Commissions of Inquiry into a whole range of matters. I submit that the President has no power in law to stop the Police from investigating the possible commission of any offence, moreso, one from which deaths have resulted. Indeed, the Coroner has a duty to investigate every unnatural death which comes to his attention. The President has no power in law to stop either of these processes. It’s quite ironic that the Attorney-General tells the nation that the President wants the Coroners Act amended because he wants inquests to be held into unnatural deaths which occurred under the PPP but the same President capriciously shuts down any investigation into an incident which occurred merely a few days ago in which three persons died.
Yours faithfully,
Mohabir Anil Nandlall
MP
Attorney-at-Law
