District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo has been charged in relation to the alleged fraud surrounding the March 2nd General and Regional Elections and is expected to appear before a Magistrate this week.
Sunday Stabroek was reliably informed yesterday that Mingo was charged with four counts of misconduct in public office.
The police yesterday informed Mingo of the charges levelled against him before the expiration of the additional 24 hours they had been granted on Friday to detain him.
Four other persons: Mingo’s three assistants, Sheffern February, Michelle Miller and Carolyn Mikhaik Duncan along with Information Technology (IT) officer Enrique Livan, are also likely to be charged.
They all remained in police custody up to last evening. Mingo had been accused by party agents of reading fictional numbers from a spreadsheet and making two false declarations for District Four.
The charges against Mingo constitute a major development in the five-month delay in the declaration of the result of the March 2nd general elections amid claims that he and others were attempting to rig the elections in favour of the former incumbent APNU+AFC. The dispute over the District Four count led to a painstaking 35-day recount scrutinized by CARICOM, the Organisation of American States and local observers. The recount determined that the PPP/C had won the elections.
Sixty-nine-year-old Mingo was arrested on Tuesday at his residence at Little Abary, Mahaicony and transported to the Criminal Investigation Department at Eve Leary.
Mingo is one of two named defendants in charges filed on March 13 by Charles Ramson Jr. in relation to the controversial results for District Four.
His co-defendant PNCR Chair Volda Lawrence was on Monday placed on $100,000 bail after appearing before Chief Magis-trate Ann McLennon. Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield is also the subject of a similar investigation.
The latest of the arrests was on Thursday when the police took into custody Livan who was at the centre of a flash drive controversy at the Ashmins building on March 4th.
On the morning of March 4, the police had conducted a public interrogation of Livan at the tabulation centre at the Ashmins building after a party agent claimed they saw him entering data from a “flash drive onto a spreadsheet” outside the scrutiny of party representatives and observers.
Though video of the interrogation was widely shared, no charges have ever been brought against Livan and he remained employed with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum had previously told this newspaper that Mingo and the others are being questioned in relation to several offences including falsification of documents, uttering forged documents, conspiracy to commit fraud and misconduct in public office.
The High Court on Friday granted the police an extension of time to detain Mingo after his initial 72-hour detention period expired.
In the court document seen by this newspaper, Chief Justice (ag), Rishi Persaud granted the police an extension to keep Mingo in custody until 14.20hrs yesterday.
The judge further ordered that Mingo report to the police at the Crimi-nal Investigation Depart-ment (CID), Eve Leary at 9am daily effective from August 30th.
He is to also to lodge his passport at the CID Headquarters and to report any change of residence.
If Mingo fails to comply with the order, he will be held in contempt of court and may be liable to imprisonment or have his assets confiscated.
“Go much deeper and further”
A number of the persons who were present at the Ashmins Building during the period in which the fraud was allegedly committed have since provided the police with statements and have since shared their experience with the Sunday Stabroek.
Kit Nascimento, who was an observer with the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and one of the first individuals to speak out on the irregularities yesterday related to the Sunday Stabroek that he received a call from Blanhum on Friday, inviting him to visit the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Eve Leary to provide a statement in the matter if he wished.
“It was not a summons. It wasn’t a direction. It was a request and I volunteered to do that very readily,” Nascimento said.
Nascimento said he provided the police with an extensive statement about what he witnessed during the period.
Nascimento believes that the investigation must go much deeper and further than Mingo, so that the intellectual authors can also be held accountable.
“…..I strongly believe that this investigation must go much deeper and much further…there were obviously people in charge of what Mr Mingo was seen to be doing. All the way to the very top….I think it will be wrong and unfair and it is inadequate if a thorough investigation was not to take place which should pursue the authors, the managers of what Mingo did…..for instance when Mingo made the first or attempted to make the first declaration within the Ashmins building, every senior member or many of the senior members of GECOM were in that building. The Chairman was present. The Chief Election Officer (CEO) was present. I speak from what I saw. They were there, they were in their offices. They knew that Mr Mingo had not even completed at that time the tabulation (of Statements of Poll) yet they did nothing….that should be investigated,” he explained.
According to Nascimento, CEO Keith Lowenfield should also be held equally accountable since he embraced Mingo’s fraudulent tabulation.
“Because he was involved on more than one occasion when Mingo was conducting tabulations under protest. He bridged it and he incorporated it in the declaration that he made and submitted it to the Chairman of the Elections Commission…that, too, needs to investigated and questions need to be asked…..if that had been challenged at that time when it took place, there would never have been a need for a recount and all of the agonies the nation has been put through since then,” Nascimento added.
Nascimento said he hopes that the investigation goes deeper. “So many things need to be investigated from top to bottom……It is my sincere hope that this investigation ….would go all the way to wherever it has begun. It must go much deeper than Mr Mingo,” he said.
PPP/C Counting Agent at the elections, Charles Ramson Jr has also provided the police with a statement.
In an invited comment yesterday, Ramson Jr told Stabroek News that he too was invited to provide a statement during which he related what transpired during the period of March 1st to the 6th.
Ramson Jr noted that following his statement, he also had a confrontation with Mingo.
“After I concluded the entire what is called a confrontation in the criminal law, but it’s just a recount of what happened that leads to this potential charge….all he (Mingo) said was that he has nothing to say in response to what I had said. The only other thing that I would add is that he shook his head in affirmation when I said that I sent a letter requesting a recount and that a letter was sent by him refusing to do a recount,” Ramson detailed.
Ramson, now the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, said he gave his statement on Friday morning and the process lasted for an hour.
Among the other individuals who provided statements in the investigations are Presidential Candidate of the Liberty and Justice Party (LJP), Lenox Shuman and businessman Peter Ramsaroop of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).
Shuman had previously told this newspaper that he was invited to the CID Headquarters on Thursday during which he provided a written statement detailing what transpired from March 3rd to April 4th.
“I wasn’t really asked questions. They just wanted to know if I am willing to provide a statement, which I agreed to. I went in there and actually I wrote out my statement as I recall everything and I submitted it to them,” Shuman said.
“They asked if I was willing to participate in the investigation….offering my views as to what happened and I agreed…They simply asked if I am willing to provide a statement on the activities of what transpired, I provided that and that’s it,” he added.
Meanwhile, in a post on his Facebook page on Friday, Ramsaroop said, “I sat at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) today giving my official statement on the Electoral Fraud I witnessed 3-5 March 2020 at the GECOM Ashmin Building. I slept there in the night only going home to shower and change. I was there from the first spreadsheet, to the false declarations, to being kicked out from guarding the SOPs by riot police. I saw individuals from the other main political party in areas where they should not have been, along with spreadsheets the same as the fraud ones from Mingo and many other incidents that is now linked to the fraud. I was there at 2am for the Flash Drive Theft. Guyanese should never have to ever go thru what we experienced over the last 5 months. I am ready for the Witness Stand if called upon”.
Meanwhile, a second habeas corpus filed yesterday for Mingo was ruled inapplicable by the High Court as the police had already charged him.
Mingo was to have been released at 2.30 pm yesterday based on the order on Friday by Justice Persaud but by that time he had already been charged by the police and therefore the order was considered “spent”.
According to a release yesterday from the Attorney General’s Chambers, Mingo represented by Darren Wade, attorney-at-law filed a Fixed Date Application (urgent and made with Notice) yesterday with an Affidavit in Support of Application sworn to yesterday seeking a Writ of Habeas Corpus Ad Subjiciendum to be issued and directed to the Commissioner of Police in favour of the release of Mingo.
The release said that the application was heard yesterday before Justice Persaud virtually at 4.45 pm. Wade and Roysdale Forde appeared for Mingo. Attorney General, Anil Nandlall appeared in person for the hearing and Teriq Mohamed, State Counsel appeared for and on behalf of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The release said that at the hearing the judge stated that the order for the 2.30 pm release was spent the moment the charges were read yesterday by the police to Mingo and that it is now within the realm of the Magistrate’s Court to deal with the matter.
Nandlall told the Court that the Habeas Corpus Application was misconceived and it was wasting the Court’s time and effort. The Attorney General lamented that attorneys must advise themselves on the law and the facts before activating the Court’s process. He reminded the Court that only on Friday a similar misconceived application was filed, which Wade, himself, conceded was of academic importance.
The Attorney General’s Chambers release said that the police are ready to take Mingo to court and will do so tomorrow.
