Years after Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon coined the term “phantom” squad references to the alleged killings of hundreds of men by this gang have been surfacing at the trial of Roger Khan in New York even as questions linger about its continued activities here.
It was in 2002, at the height of the execution-style killings of a number of young men that Luncheon had said that intelligence agencies were examining the possibility that there was a “phantom body” out there involved in a number of killings.
In its amended form the term ‘phantom squad’ has been with Guyanese ever since. While some are angry at the murderous activities of the members of this group, others praise them as the ones who curtailed the 2002-2006 crime spree in the country. Former Minister of Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj had been accused of having links to the squad. Though an inquiry subsequently cleared him, he was relieved of his ministerial post and sent to India as high commissioner. Prior to that, US authorities had revoked his visa as well as that of his wife.
Meanwhile, in its case against Khan, indicted on charges of exporting cocaine into the US, the US government has named him head of the phantom squad. According to papers filed in the US Eastern District Court of New York, he caused the deaths of some 200 Guyanese through the same squad.
This is the same Khan, who had boasted in a statement to the media in 2006, which was published as an advertisement in some newspapers, that during the crime spree in 2002, he had worked closely with the crime-fighting section of the police force, providing assistance and information at his own expense. He had said that his participation had been instrumental in curbing crime during that period.
He had also boasted that when American diplomat Steve Lesniak had been kidnapped and taken to the village of Buxton, he had met operatives from the US Embassy on a daily basis and provided them with information. It was hard evidence from him, he said, that had led to the issuance of an arrest warrant by a US district court judge for escapee Shawn Browne, who was thought to have masterminded the abduction. The security forces cornered Browne in a house a few days later and shot him dead. Stabroek News was told that Khan employed ex-convicts and policemen, paid them and had them gather intelligence on the five escapees, Browne, Dale Moore, Andrew Douglas, Mark Fraser and Troy Dick.
The quintet had made a bloody escape from the Camp Street Prison on February 23, 2002, which became the catalyst for a wave of crime the country had never before experienced. During this period, some 21 policemen were shot dead and numerous civilians murdered. Scores of policemen left the job and confidence in the force was at an all-time low.
‘Propensity for violence’
Meantime, according to court documents in support of Khan’s charges the government said it would seek to establish that he was the leader of a “violent drug trafficking organisation (the Khan organisation) that was based in Georgetown, Guyana, from at least 2001 until his arrest in 2006.” Khan and his co-conspirators reportedly obtained large quantities of cocaine, and then imported the cocaine into the Eastern District of New York and other places for further distribution.
“Khan was ultimately able to control the cocaine industry in Guyana, in large part, because he was backed by a para military squad that would murder, threaten, and intimidate others at Khan’s directive. Khan’s enforcers committed violent acts and murders on Khan’s orders that were directly in furtherance of Khan’s drug trafficking conspiracy,” court documents said. The documents added that the paramilitary squad was referred to as the phantom squad.
These accusations had led Justice Dora Irizarry to rule earlier this year in favour of an anonymous jury for Khan’s drug trial.
This 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 escorted to and from the courthouse each day by the United States Marshals Service.
The judge was of the opinion 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.
While Khan was not charged with crimes considered violent in nature, his involvement with and leadership of a criminal organisation indicated his “propensity for violence,” the judge had said.
The judge, in making her ruling, had said that there was evidence of Khan’s willingness to tamper with the judicial process since he admitted that in 1993 he successfully evaded federal prosecution in Vermont for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon by absconding to Guyana while on bail.
‘Allegations’
While there had been talk about the phantom squad, no one had publicly come out and admitted its existence until January 2004 when the now dead George Bacchus went public with allegations that linked Gajraj to the squad, while admitting that he had acted as an informant for the squad. A person or persons unknown killed Bacchus in his Princes Street, Lodge home later that same year.
It was after condemnation over Gajraj’s alleged role with the squad from a number of groups and organisations that President Bharrat Jagdeo announced the setting up of a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate the allegations against Gajraj.
Bacchus’s allegations about Gajraj’s link to the squad had been made in statements to the media and to officials at the US embassy after his brother Shafeek was gunned down outside his Princes Street home on January 5, 2004. Bacchus had said he believed he was the intended target as he had been complaining about rogue members of the phantom gang formed to hunt down the five escapees.
Bacchus had claimed that it was the “the atrocities” carried out by criminals during the crime wave in 2002 that had inspired his involvement as an informant but said that was the full extent of his participation in the group’s activities.
He had said that he was responsible for collecting “intelligence” for the group, often locating criminals whom the group was targeting.
But after the elimination of the criminals who had been its targets, the ex-informant said the squad had begun to carry out executions for people who were willing to pay for its services. The man had also identified to embassy officials a spot in the city where people who were abducted by the group were tortured. By this time he had left the group, but he was still critical of its activities. These included several killings that continued even after the death of escapee Shawn Brown.
“I told [the official] about the killings over and over,” he had said in a statement. “He said he would ‘look into it.’
“Those men killing people all over and some a dem innocent, if a man jam you car and you want he dead all you have to do is pay dem men.”
For his criticism of the group’s activities, the man said, he became a target as his concerns were filtered back to the squad. He had said he was even placed under surveillance by some of the gunmen, who would park their cars along his street, watching his house.
‘Any Tom, Dick and Harry’
Bacchus’s allegations had also sparked calls from the PNCR, the Working People’s Alliance, ROAR and the African Cultural Development Association for Gajraj’s resignation.
Telephone records had subsequently revealed that a suspected key squad member, Axel Williams, who was killed on December 10, 2003 in Bel Air in a well-organised hit, had made several calls to Gajraj at the ministry and at his home.
Gajraj has always maintained that he knew nothing of a phantom gang or any killings.
“Not at all,” he had told reporters when asked if he was aware of the killings. “I have said time and time again what my position is with respect to those enquiries. And it is still the same. Anybody can go out there and say whatever they want to say. It must bear scrutiny, it must bear analysis; and not just because somebody jumps up and says something, you will arrive at a judgement position.”
He had said experience had shown that if government officials said anything, it was given very little, if any, credibility. “But any Tom, Dick and Harry can jump up and make statements, and they are treated as gospel.
“Nobody stops to look at circumstances or the validity… of the statements that are being made. So long as it is made against a government official… or the government per se, irrespective of who says it, it is gospel.”
With regard to the telephone records showing calls made to him by Williams, Gajraj had said, “Axel Williams was only one individual. There were several other persons who were in contact with me on the telephone and on several telephones. So the press might choose to exacerbate Axel Williams’s case but I say that there are several other persons throughout the length and breadth of this country who have been in contact with me through all hours of the day and night.”
Asked why he was in contact with Williams, he had responded, “Like any other issue, it could be a host of reasons [for which] he might have wanted to be in contact with me, or I [might] want to be in contact with him…
“I would not disclose if you call me or somebody else calls me, especially if it relates to matters of national security. Sometimes what you tell me might be very innocuous or putting it in the wider context of the security system, might be (deficient). Any informant or information received on criminal situations in my view is a matter of national security.”
Rival groups
President Jagdeo never believed there was a phantom squad carrying out extra-judicial killings.
“…If there are Phantom Groups, how would I know about their existence? I know that we have people mysteriously turning up dead and I have been advised that there are rival groups fighting for supremacy especially in the drug trade,” the President had said when he was asked about the issue. He had said that although he would have admitted that the crime situation was quite a serious one, the media still painted a very negative picture of Guyana.
The President had said that there were several factors responsible for the crime in Guyana including Guyanese involvement in the Colombian drug trade, the large number of deportees and other domestic problems. And he had admitted that his police force was under-equipped, but said that his government was exploring various possibilities to solve the problems.
‘No private militias’
While the President, his former minister and the police denied the existence of the squad, Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee, earlier this year, in so many words had admitted that such a squad existed.
He told those who were gathered at this year’s wreath-laying ceremony for police officers who died in the line of duty, that the Guyana Police Force was the only entity tasked with dismantling the criminal enterprise, “not any private militias, not any phantom group, not any individual who has personal vendettas, that is an era that is left behind.”
Rohee told the officers that the best tribute they could pay to their fallen peers was to “capture by any means, and I emphasise that, by any means possible, this notorious group of men and dismantle the enterprise which gives them support.” He called on all Guyanese to support the force while pointing out that those who had died had made the ultimate sacrifice.
The police may have heeded his words as less than two months later, the two most wanted men in the country, Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles, were cornered and killed by members of the force.
‘Execution killings dropped’
In the same vein as Rohee, Crime Chief, Seelall Persaud, had boldly announced last year that since Khan had been captured by the US, execution-style killings in Guyana had dropped considerably from 43 in 2006 to 12 last year.
Speaking at the launch of the 2007 Christmas policing plan, he had said that the force had been working to dismantle the many criminal gangs operating in society.
According to Persaud, since the US had arrested Khan in Suriname and extradited him to face drug charges in New York there had been a decrease in execution-style killings. Persaud had said too that Khan had a group of men who worked with him while he was here, but since he had been locked up the men had all gone in different directions.
“We believe that Mr Khan was involved in narcotics trafficking and since his arrest we have seen a fragmentation of his gang instead of them being one place they are all over the place,” he had said.
Asked why the police had not gone after Khan’s gang, many of whom, as he had indicated, still roamed the streets today, Persaud had responded that charges were laid against individuals based on evidence. He said the police were still conducting investigations.
This year, the force said it had asked US authorities for information based on revelations made in Khan’s court case.
