The police on Wednesday said that Leonard Arokium, owner of the Lindo Creek camp where the burnt remains of eight men were found, had never told ranks that his son or any of the deceased were in possession of a cellular phone.
Attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes had said that the phone was registered in Arokium’s name but it was in the possession of his son Dax at the camp where the remains were found and telephone records have since shown that over 40 calls were made from it.
According to the camp owner, the phone number was included in a detailed statement he gave to police on June 21 when he met investigators the night after the gruesome discovery.
However on Wednesday the police refuted his claim saying that “a check of the statement taken on the night in question and all other statements uplifted by the police has revealed nothing about Dax Arokium being in possession of a cell phone at Lindo Creek or anywhere else.”
In a release the Force said that it was responding to publications in the media on Wednesday where it was said in a letter from the law firm Hughes, Fields and Stoby that Arokium had provided the number of the cellular phone (allegedly used by Dax Arokium) in a statement when investigators accompanied Prime Minister Samuel Hinds; Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee and Acting Commissioner Henry Greene to Arokium’s home.
“The Force wishes to state that on the night when the Prime Minister, the Minister of Home Affairs and the Acting Commissioner of Police visited Leonard Arokium he never told them anything about any of the deceased having a cell phone, including his son. In fact he was preoccupied with the fact that he had no communication with the camp and this resulted in him being anxious to go to the camp,” the release stated.
The Force noted that Arokium’s lawyer Nigel Hughes continues to make disparaging remarks about the police and in a letter to Hughes on Wednesday the acting police commissioner “reminded him that both his law firm and the Guyana Police Force are professional bodies and should do their jobs in a professional manner.”
