Barticians are divided in their opinions regarding the alleged involvement of Roger Simon in the recent slaughter there even as the man’s relatives contend that he was not in the community on the night when gunmen killed 12 people.
Simon, 44, a miner of 25 Fifth Avenue, Bartica was recently charged with the February 17 murders of the 12 people, including three policemen. His relatives told Stabroek News on Tuesday that Simon, a father of four, was in the interior at the time of the incident and they found it quite strange that he was implicated in the slaughter.
Shaunette Simon, the man’s daughter told Stabroek News during an interview in Bartica on Tuesday that her father was at 14 Mile in the interior along with his 18-year-old son at the time of the killings. She said he had made contact with them two days after the slaughter to find out how they were coping and advised them to be watchful.
About two weeks after, Shaunette said, he returned home and was in Bartica for another two weeks, during which time he was never approached by the police or questioned in relation to the killings. Simon subsequently travelled to Linden to meet some of his friends and it was in the bauxite mining town that the police picked him up.
Shaunette told Stabroek News her father told her that he was walking near the Mackenzie Police Station one Sunday afternoon, when a policeman whom he knew from Bartica saw him and called out to him, using his call name “Goat”, asking him what he was doing at Linden. At the time, Simon was in the company of another man from Bartica. The policeman invited Simon into the station compound and according to his daughter, though Simon had reservations about getting close to the police, he went in. He was subsequently taken upstairs and questioned about the killings at Bartica, arrested and charged.
Karen Benjamin, Simon’s niece, admitted that her uncle had been in jail for petty thefts, including break and enter and larceny but she said he was not capable of being involved in a crime such as the one that occurred on February 17. “We can’t accept that and everyone in this place knows that also that Simon would not be involved in killing so many people,” Benjamin asserted.
Asked whether she did not think he could have provided logistical support to the gunmen, Benjamin said no, reiterating that he was not in the community at the time. “He has no friends who are gunmen and all the police up here know he because he always in station for stealing.”
Police sources had told this newspaper that Simon was identified by one of the injured victims as having been standing in front of the Bartica Police Station gate with a gun. He had on no mask, something which Benjamin said she found hard to believe, given the fact that her uncle was well known to the police.
Stabroek News spoke to several residents, including speedboat operators who acknowledged knowing Simon as a “petty thief” but found it hard to accept that he was involved in the killings. “Being such a well-known person how could he go in front of a police station where everybody know he without a mask… that is not right, it ain’t make sense,” a taxi driver who asked not be named commented.
Simon’s daughter expressed similar sentiments while arguing that the police did little or no investigations. “I don’t know if is just so you does charge people… they need to do investigation,” Shaunette Simon said.
Almost eight weeks after the gruesome slaying of 12 persons at Bartica, Simon appeared at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court two weeks ago.
After reading the charge to him, Principal Magistrate Melissa Robertson-Ogle had carefully explained to Simon that a preliminary inquiry would be conducted to determine whether there was sufficient evidence to commit him to stand trial in the High Court.
When he appeared in court Simon had no legal representation. He will return to court at Bartica on May 14.
It is alleged that on the night of February 17 at Bartica, Simon murdered nine civilians: Edwin Gilkes, Irving Ferreira, Ronald Gomes, Baldeo Singh, Dexter Adrian, Deonarine Singh, Abdool Yassin, Ashraf Khan, Errol Thomas and three police officers: Ron Osborne, Zaheer Zakir and Shane Fredericks.
At around 9.40 on the night in question some 20 gunmen stormed the mining community and overran the Bartica police station. According to reports, the gunmen arrived in the area by boats and departed in similar fashion taking with them firearms they had grabbed from the police station and from a mining company. The attack on the Bartica community had taken place amidst supposedly heightened security across the country following the slaughter of 11 people at Lusignan, East Coast Demerara three weeks earlier. Police had blamed wanted man Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and his followers for the attacks. A teenager, James Anthony Hyles, 19, called ‘Sally’, of 70 Friendship, East Coast Demerara has been charged with the Lusignan murders.
