– queries differences in taped phone calls transcripts
A lawyer for Guyanese drug accused Shaheed Roger Khan is questioning whether the prosecutors understand the local dialect as a transcript of a conversation they provided differs vastly from one of the same conversation provided for another court matter last year.
In a letter to Justice Dora L Irizarry, who is presiding over the matter, Khan’s lawyer Robert Simels said that when the transcripts the prosecution provided of two telephone conversations involving Sherwin Lilly were compared to those provided to Justice Raymond Dearie in the case of one of Lilly’s co-defendants last year two facts were established: “there are more updated versions of the ‘Lilly’ transcript in the prosecution’s possession, and … these more updated versions demonstrate a dramatic difference in content.”
The case involved the US vs Whitney Caesar and according to Simels the transcript provided in Caesar’s trial did not correspond with those provided in draft form to Khan.
During the conversations Caesar and Lilly, along with others, discuss the issue of money being owed to them by someone in Guyana who was not paying them. They discuss how they wanted to send a signal to the man; not to kill him but to get the message over to him that the money, which was a small sum, must be paid.
Lilly was recorded as saying: “When he drive out something should just reach he f…ing front tyre,” with Caesar responding: “Not even drive out! He car alone is a target! You understand?
“Dey ent gat too many car like dat down dere. If deh gah five cars like dat down dere deh gah nuff.”
“Becau, you dun know we ain trying fi kill he, we are just trying fi send him a message,” Lilly said.
But Caesar was a bit hesitant to go along with the plan as he later stated that he did not want them to be involved in such things since he had family members in Guyana who were known by the man. He also stated that some men he had in Guyana to deal with the man reported that one time they met him and he turned up with “two big, strong men” as bodyguards.
“He is walkin like he has bodyguards. He got two big strong men. Dem man said ‘Dem f…ing strong men, dem man don’t know who dey are playing wid.’ You know what I mean,” Caesar said, and laughed.
“What I like with dat man’s crew. Dat man soldiers is the beast [police], is deh legal people. Those are dat man’s bodyguards . Dem beast banner,” Caeser said, although it was not clear what man he was referring to. Caeser promised to send back someone he referred to as his uncle to speak to the man while Lilly said he was going to lose more over some “stupidness.”
Simels argued that there might be a need for a hearing on the accuracy of any of the “transcriptions” that the prosecution asserted were prepared by Patois interpreters. “Our own review of those conversations suggests that perhaps the maker of the transcript did not understand the Guyanese dialect.”
Simels also argued that the prosecution submitted the numbers of telephones used in the conversations they taped, but none could assist them. “The Court, like all of the parties, know that few if any people engaged in narcotic trafficking have telephone numbers subscribed to their real name and since the Privacy Act prevents the defence from learning the names of subscribers, that titbit by the prosecution is not helpful in this discussion,” the letter said.
Further, Simels said they had asked permission to view the original laptop that was seized from Khan when he was arrested in Suriname as it was the defendant’s right, but the government had refused the request. “The government was able to provide a ‘cloned copy’ of the computer to defence, and it can be assumed, was also able to perform its own review of the contents of the computer, which could not have been done without having powered the laptop on to retrieve such content,” the letter said.
The letter said that the prosecution’s assertion that the defence’s request would “irreversibly alter” the content was “without merit.” And the government’s assertion that the defence needed to provide an explanation why it wished to view and inspect original evidence was “unsupported by law,” the letter said since Khan was entitled to inspect any document within the government’s possession or control which was obtained from him. Khan is charged with 18 counts of conspiracy to import cocaine into the US between 2001 and 2006 and with heading a criminal enterprise. He is also charged with violating the narcotics law of the US.
