Under pressure to do more to probe the over 200 murders allegedly committed by a squad connected to drug-accused businessman, Roger Khan, the police yesterday said that they had requested information from the US on killings linked to him.
It is not clear whether the US Embassy here has replied to the request, which came in wake of bombshell revelations in a New York court where Khan is being tried for allegedly conspiring to import cocaine into that country.
In a terse statement issued yesterday afternoon, the Guyana Police Force said that consequent to media reports about murders committed by Khan in Guyana prior to his incarceration in the United States, it has requested of the US Embassy in Guyana any information in the possession of the US authorities in relation to the murders.
Earlier in the day, Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee, told a news conference that the Bharrat Jagdeo administration was willing to cooperate on the issue to get to the bottom of the matter. He said if the US wanted to share any information about the murders Khan allegedly committed here the law enforcement authorities were willing to accept and investigate.
Asked why it took those revelations by the US to cause the police to investigate Khan, who had admitted organizing a squad of former policemen and ex-convicts to go after criminals in the 2002-04 escapee-led crime wave, Rohee said he did not know that the authorities never investigated those matters.
“I am assuming, because I wasn’t here at that time, that any police force will investigate what Khan had said,” Rohee asserted. He said he was not sure that the files of the countless unsolved murders allegedly committed by Khan’s killing squad were closed, adding that he never heard the police, nor the Director of Public Prosecu-tions declaring those cases closed.
The Jagdeo administration had been under pressure to act, given the disclosures in New York. At a press conference on May 9, Jagdeo told reporters that once evidence was shared with local law enforcement it would investigate. He said then that no evidence had been supplied to Guyana even though the US prosecution linked Khan to the murders of Davendra Persaud and boxing coach Donald Allison. Jagdeo told reporters that his government did not have information from the United States to support any of the utterances made as that country continued to build its case against Khan. “If we have any details about how they came upon this evidence or what evidence they have then I think the police should follow it up to the conclusion, although he [Khan] is not here in our jurisdiction,” Jagdeo reiterated.
He said the local law enforcement agency was obligated to pursue any evidence about Khan’s involvement in any criminal act.
Parliamentary opposition parties on Saturday told this newspaper that infiltration of the security services by criminals might have prevented the US from sharing information with the local authorities on Khan. The parties said the revelations that Khan’s squad killed over 200 people should not be taken lightly and added that the seeming non-committal attitude by the Jagdeo administration to such information would raise eyebrows. They argued that an independent probe should also be conducted since the revelations also pointed to some amount of complicity on the part of the government.
Opposition Leader Robert Corbin told this newspaper that he was not surprised that the US did not share information with the local law enforcement officials and attributed this to the current state of the security services in Guyana. Corbin said it was clear that security was compromised and had been infiltrated by drug lords. “There is no integrity here and if information is shared with them it can get back to the drug lords and that could compromise everything,” Corbin insisted.
He said it was pathetic that the local authorities would have to rely on the US’s information to deal with a purely internal matter. “We should have been in a position to give information. So the question should have been not whether they are withholding information but whether we were able to provide any information to them,” he said.
Alliance for Change (AFC) Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan said he felt the non-committal approach by government in this regard must raise eyebrows and noted that the way things unfolded and the way murders were committed over a period, gave an impression of association at a high level.
Guyana Action Party/Rise Organise and Rebuild Guyana (ROAR) Member of Parliament Everall Franklin queried who would carry out such investigations. He said that only an external investigative body could bring any meaning to such investigations, noting that the many mysterious killings, which occurred after the 2001 jailbreak, could not just have occurred without great assistance.
Two weeks ago, New York Eastern District Court Judge Dora Irizarry considered Khan’s criminal history and his alleged participation in a large-scale criminal enterprise in ruling in favour of an anonymous jury for his trial slated for October. At the same time, a US government source said that the infamous “Phantom Squad” had murdered over 200 persons here. Justice Irizarry’s ruling meant that the names, addresses and workplaces of members of the jury would not be revealed and that they would eat lunch together and be accompanied to and from the courthouse each day by the United States Marshals Service.
In her ruling Justice Irizarry opined that the dangerousness of Khan as alleged by the prosecution, was a fact worth considering since according to one of the government’s confidential sources the “Phantom Squad” Khan was associated with was responsible for “at least 200 extra-judicial killings from 2002 to 2006” in Guyana. She said while he was not charged with crimes considered violent in nature, his involvement with and leadership of a criminal organisation indicates his “propensity for violence.”
Khan is charged with an eighteen-count indictment of distribution, importation, and possession of cocaine and engaging as a principal administrator, organiser, and leader of a continuing criminal enterprise in New York and elsewhere. He is accused of heading a powerful, violent, cocaine trafficking organisation out of Guyana. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted.
