An amendment to existing police legislation is all that is required to cement the procedures that would govern the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), which is just another unit within the Guyana Police Force, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan said last Friday.
Questions were raised about the rules governing the unit, which is an integral part of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework, following a bungled surveillance operation last December, which resulted in the deaths of army intelligence officer Robert Pyle, his wife Stacy Pyle and truck driver Linden Eastman. Questions have also being raised about whether it falls under the Ministry of Presidency or the Guyana Police Force and its independence.
Ramjattan, during the 2016 budget debate in February, had revealed that there were existing draft protocols for the unit, which was created in 2013. He had explained that the previous administration never had operational protocols and steps have since been taken by him to bring their operations in line with the Standard Operating Procedures of the Guyana Police Force, hence the drafting of the protocols.
