Plans being finalised for RSS team over youth murders
The authorities yesterday met to discuss a plan ahead of the arrival of a team from the Regional Security System (RSS), which will be aiding in the investigation of the murders of the three West Coast Berbice ( WCB) teenagers including the Henry cousins.
Stabroek News was reliably informed that the meeting was held yesterday to “work out” a methodology towards having the RSS team arriving in the country.
It is unclear whether a date has yet been set for their arrival.
Among those present at the meeting were Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugh Todd, a team of senior police officials including Commissioner of Police (ag) Nigel Hoppie and a team from the RSS.
In an address to the nation on the evening of September 9th, President Irfaan Ali announced that he will be mobilizing help from the RSS of the Caribbean and the UK government to bolster the investigative capacity of the police force as they probe the murders of the teenagers in the village of Cotton Tree as well as the “criminality which led to the disruption of lives along the Region Five corridor.”
We will seek to use all available tools in not only solving these crimes but also in getting a comprehensive and holistic picture as to all the events surrounding what took place thereafter,” Ali had said.
This Government will work to bring justice to every single person who has been affected in these circumstances, Ali assured. He explain-ed that in consultation with the GPF, he engaged the mechanism to reach out to the British Government to come to Guyana in support of the Force’s investigative capacity.
The Regional Security System is a “hybrid” organisation, part of the Caribbean Community which works to ensure the stability and well-being of Member States through mutual cooperation, in order to maximise regional security in preserving the social and economic development.
Under the terms of the Treaty on Security Assistance (TSA) the RSS offers immediate and threat appropriate response to all situations, programmes to increase security awareness and high-quality comprehensive and objective research. It also offers intelligence and Trend Analysis in a timely manner to support effective decision-making.
According to Ali, along with bolstering the criminal investigative capacity of the GPF he had asked the Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs to explore, within the United Nations system, all means available to hold to account, all those who spread race hate and instigate racial strife.
“We need to understand who instigated, what was instigated and as a result, I am exploring the commissioning of an International Commission of Inquiry (COI) to look at every aspect of this situation, to look beyond what took place on the ground, to look at the behaviours that came about as a result of statements made. The COI is important for us to have a comprehensive understanding as to what took place,” Ali said.
He added, “the time has come for us to deal with this issue very frontally. The time has come for us to deal with it very seriously and no one must believe that they can use situations like these for any political gain. There is no gain whether politically, socially, economically, morally or culturally. There is no gain that you can get out of this. The only persons who lose are the families who are suffering, the people who received and who were inflicted with blows and loss of property and the country; the credibility and image of our country suffers greatly”.
Two Sundays ago, the police said that the bodies of the cousins were found about 600 feet from each other in clumps of bushes near to a coconut farm on the West Coast of Berbice.
Isaiah, 16, a student at the Woodley Park Secondary School, and Joel, 18, who worked at the Blairmont Estate, went missing Saturday, September 5, after they left home for the Cotton Tree backlands to pick coconuts.
After they did not return home, relatives lodged missing persons’ reports with the police and subsequently launched a search. It was while searching that the bodies of the teens were discovered.
Autopsies performed on the bodies of the teenagers showed that they both died from haemorrhage and shock due to multiple wounds.
Days after the killing, Haresh Singh, a relative of one of the suspects in the matter was also murdered, in what is believed to be a retaliation killing.
A number of persons, including the owner of a coconut estate were arrested and questioned in relation to the murder of the Henry’s. However, they were subsequently placed on station bail and are required to make “scheduled” visits to the Blairmont Police Station.
In addition, the police added that they are actively pursuing two suspects.
The police on Monday disclosed that investigations revealed that the Henrys were not killed at the location where their bodies were found. “…Preliminary findings showed that the bodies of the Henry boys were discovered at a secondary crime scene,” the police in a statement had said.
This means that the heinous murders were not committed where the bodies were found. “Person(s) moved the bodies after the murder and placed them at the locations where they were subsequently discovered,” the police added.
Forensic evidence was found at the secondary crime scene and has since been collected, preserved and submitted to the Guyana Forensic Laboratory for DNA analysis.
The police had also said that DNA samples were also collected from the suspects who were in custody and sent for a comparative analysis to be conducted against the forensic evidence collected from the secondary crime scene.
The results are expected within the next three weeks.