DPP advises against criminal charges over sand removal from cemetery

The excavated area

The Director of Public Prosecutions has advised the Guyana Police Force to not institute criminal charges against the contractor allegedly involved in the removal of sand from a burial ground at Murphy Dam Cemetery, West Bank Berbice, which resulted in several tombs disappearing.

Commander of Region Five, Kurleigh Simon, recently told reporters that “the file came back with advice that the interested parties, that is the NDC or the persons who claim that their deceased relatives’ gravesites were desecrated, can take private legal action, because there was not enough evidence against the contractor or the individual for a criminal charge to be preferred.”

Initially the DPP’s file last year was sent back to the division requesting additional information, and Simon stressed that after this all of the parties involved were contacted again with further statements being taken along with documents and photographs being supplied so as to ensure all the information needed was given.