The US Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – 2007 on Guyana said “potentially unlawful” police killings, mistreatment of suspects and detainees by the security forces and lengthy pre-trial detention are some areas of concern though government generally respected the rights of its citizens in 2007.
The Report, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor of the US State Department yesterday, said there were no reports that government or its agents had committed any politically motivated killings. However, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) and the media asserted that police continued to commit unlawful killings. Reported police killings dropped to nine, compared with 20 in 2006.
The constitution broadly defines justifiable use of lethal force, the Report said and of the nine cases, the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) received five complaints. In most cases the police shot the victims while attempting to make an arrest or while a crime was being committed. Some cases which attracted media attention last year included the shooting to death of Buxtonian Donna Herod on September 4 as she walked along a public street close to an active police operation. Off-duty police officer Clement Bailey, allegedly using his police-issued firearm to shoot and kill a young barber, Clifton Garraway, during an altercation outside a Georgetown nightclub on February 26, 2007; police officer Orville Tucker originally being charged with murder in the 2005 killing of Carl Abrams. A magistrate subsequently downgraded the charge to manslaughter on August 7 after a preliminary inquiry was held. Also, policeman Mohanlall Persaud was cleared of manslaughter charges in the April 2006 killing of minibus driver Orin Adams; and the preliminary inquiry continued into the manslaughter charges against police officer Kurt Anton for the 2005 killing of Eon Forester.
Meanwhile, on January 6, 2007 the authorities charged one suspect with kidnapping and murder in the 2006 killing of Minister of Agriculture Satyadeow Sawh. On October 30, 2007 police captured a second suspect and killed a third during a raid. Five other suspects remain at large. There were no other developments in the allegations of police killings in previous years, including the 2006 cases of Bemaul Harrinarine, Kelvin Nero, or James Bennet.
As regard torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, the Report said the law prohibits torture and “although there were no confirmed reports of its use, numerous allegations circulated of police abuse of suspects and detainees.” It said that in December the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) was accused of physically abusing two of its soldiers during an interrogation related to the search for missing weapons; the GDF promised a full investigation. Some senior officials in the government publicly dismissed the abuse allegations, “despite physical evidence that appeared to corroborate some of the claims.” During the year the PCA received 39 complaints of unlawful arrest and 11 complaints of unnecessary use of violence. The GDF, comprising 2,500 troops is headed by a chief of staff under the purview of the Defence Board, which President Bharrat Jagdeo chairs.
Effectiveness
The Report said that poor training, poor equipment, and acute budgetary constraints severely limited the effectiveness of the 2,900-strong Guyana Police Force (GPF) while public confidence in and cooperation with the police remained low. There were reports of corruption in the force and most cases involving charges against police officers were heard by lower magistrates’ courts, where specially trained police officers served as the prosecutors.
The Report found too that substantial staff shortages and the lack of its own investigative unit obstructed the PCA’s fulfilment of its mandate to conduct impartial and transparent assessments of the accusations it received. Only four of eight full-time positions in the PCA are filled.
During the year the PCA received 191 written complaints of which five involved police killings. The remainder was mostly for police neglecting their duties or misbehaving in public places, unlawful arrest, wrongful seizure of firearms or motor vehicles, corrupt transactions, and unnecessary use of force. Investigation into the complaints led to four recommendations of criminal charges and 27 recommendations of disciplinary action against police officers.
By law the Commissioner of Police must comply with the PCA’s recommendation on complaints, but the PCA instead relied on the GPF to conduct investigations into complaints against its own officers. Long delays in getting reports from the commissioner also thwarted the complaints process, the report said.
In relation to arrest and detention, the Report said that although the law provides criminal detainees prompt access to a lawyer of their choice and to family members, in practice these rights were not fully respected. Police routinely required permission from the senior investigating officer, who was seldom on the premises, before permitting counsel access to a client. There were reports also that senior officers refused to grant prompt access to prisoners.
The Report also said lengthy pre-trial detention was due mainly to judicial inefficiency, staff shortages, and cumbersome legal procedures, which remain a problem. Pre-trial detainees constituted about one-third of the prison population, and the average length of pre-trial detention was four months for those awaiting trial at the magistrate’s court and 18 months for those awaiting trial at the High Court.
Judiciary
According to the Report the law provides for an independent judiciary, and the government generally respected this provision in practice. Compared to 2006, there were no credible allegations of governmental judicial intervention.
Delays and inefficiencies undermined judicial due process and these were caused by shortages of trained court personnel and magistrates, inadequate resources, postponements at the request of the defence or prosecution, occasional allegations of bribery, poor tracking of cases, and the slowness of police in preparing cases for trial. The delays resulted in a backlog of more than 19,000 cases.
In the sub-category Political Prisoners and Detainees, the Report said the government did not detain persons on political grounds. It said on August 27, 2007 the president granted a pardon to Mark Benschop, a talk show host arrested on charges of treason in 2002. His supporters considered him to be a political detainee.
On civil judicial procedures and remedies, the Report said that delays, inefficiencies, and corruption in the magistrate’s court system affected citizen’s ability to seek timely remedy in civil matters, and there was a large backlog of civil cases. In terms of arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, the report noted that while “the law prohibits such actions, and law enforcement officials generally respected these prohibitions, there were reports that police officers searched homes without warrants, particularly in the village of Buxton, a criminal enclave, and in neighbourhoods where narcotics trafficking was suspected.”