Results from the DNA samples taken by Jamaican sleuths from the relatives of the eight miners murdered at Lindo Creek are expected in another two weeks after the tests are done in Kingston.
A relative of one of the miners said on Tuesday they were told at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) where the samples were taken that the tests would not be done in Guyana and they can expect some information in another two weeks.
Meanwhile, owner of the mining camp Leonard Arokium yesterday said that he is “sticking” by his story as it relates to the killing of the men, among them his son and brother.
In a release on Wednesday night the police said that while Arokium accused members of the Joint Services of committing the crime he had not produced one person to corroborate his story. It said that the camp owner had cited several persons who had told him different stories concerning the slaughter: the Joint Services killed the men at Lindo Creek, the Joint Services killed a cow and ate with members of his camp and the ranks would usually transport the men from the UNAMCO road to the camp area.
However, the police stated that the guards at the UNAMCO gate and the camp attendant at Number 69 mining camp were contacted and denied speaking to Arokium or telling him any of the stories.
Contacted yesterday Arokium said he is sticking by his story since he knows what he is saying when he speaks. “Time will tell. Don’t be delusional,” the mining camp owner said when told of the police statement. He said everyone is speculating but he is sticking by what he has said which is that the men were murdered by lawmen.
Some two weeks ago Arokium had said that a senior police officer, who heads a special unit in the force, had told him that one of the men he said he spoke to had denied making a statement he was alleged to have made to Arokium and was prepared to stand up in front of him and make the denial. Arokium had also said that he was asked if he wanted to recant anything he would have said and he had told the officer that he stood by what he had said.
And in its statement on Wednesday the police said that a man claiming to be Guyana’s most wanted, Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins, had told two women on the bus hijacked on the Aroaima trail in June last that he had killed “nine persons” at Lindo Creek and burnt their bodies. The statement also linked two gunmen killed at Goat Farm to the hijacking of the bus. The police release said that the two men killed were identified by persons who were on the bus as the persons who hijacked the bus on the day in question along with the man calling himself ‘Fineman’.
The man calling himself ‘Fineman’ also reportedly told the women that he burnt the bodies and the Joint Services could not see the smoke. The police said when this information was related to Arokium by the Police Office of Professional Responsibility “he said that he was speaking things that he had heard.”
The force in its statement also expressed concerns over recent statements made by relatives of the dead men when they said they believed that members of the Joint Services murdered the miners. It said that some relatives of the deceased rather than wait on the findings of the current ongoing investigations “prefer to make statements which have no evidential or factual basis.” It called on the sister of Compton Speirs, Patricia Hutson, who on Tuesday said that the Commissioner of Police is lying, “to tell us what the truth is as she seems to know it and to stop using emotionalism which surrounds such issues to make irresponsible statements.”
The statement said that Hutson in calling on the United Nations Office to intervene “should also mention the plight of the many other families left scarred and distraught by the Bartica and Lusignan murders, and not focus on the Lindo Creek issue along.”
The police further issued a call on all concerned including the press “to act responsibly in this matter and allow the current investigations to take their course.”
Police had said they encountered ‘Fineman’ and his gang during a confrontation at Christmas Falls on June 6. They said that one of the gunmen was killed while six others managed to escape.
The eight miners were believed to have been murdered sometime after this date.
Shortly after the confrontation, on June 16 a group of gunmen hijacked a busload of passengers on the Aroaima trail and disappeared. Police killed two gunmen subsequently at Goat Farm, located some 90 miles from Christmas Falls and arrested a teenager at Ituni.
The two men killed at Goat Farm were identified as Cecil Ramcharran called ‘Uncle Willie’ and Robin Chung called ‘Chung Boy’. Wednesday’s statement was the first time that police have definitively linked them to the hijacking. Police had earlier said that ballistics tests on the spent shells discovered at the Lindo Creek scene found that they matched one of the weapons that was recovered by the security forces following the confrontation at Goat Farm.
The skull and bones were discovered by Arokium on a visit to Camp Lindo on June 21.
Police have so far not explained how the gang would have moved 90 miles from the original confrontation with weapons and supplies when they were supposed to have been on the run. The police have also not explained how since the Joint Services had control of the area there was no sign of smoke from the camp when the bodies were being burnt sometime in June after the June 6 Christmas Falls shoot-out.
Those killed at Lindo Creek are Dax Arokium, Cedric Arokium, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes, Clifton Wong, Lancelot Lee, Bonny Harry and Nigel Torres.
