–Jamaican lab ‘for special treatment’
The police and relatives of the Lindo Creek eight will have to wait much longer for the DNA results of samples taken of the burned bodies last year, as the Jamaican lab where they were sent is undergoing some changes.
Deputy Commissioner of Police of Jamaica Charles Scarlett, who is in Guyana attending the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police (ACCP) conference, said the country’s forensic lab is in for “special treatment”.
However, Scarlett confessed that he was unable to comment specifically about the Lindo Creek samples.
Asked when Guyana was likely to receive the results of the DNA samples taken by Jamaican police since last July, Scarlett said his country’s police force had some limitations of capacity and had embarked on a process of reform.
He said the DNA forensic laboratory “is in for special treatment [and] we hope that we would be able over time with improvement, to respond quickly to our own needs as well as to requests of our Caribbean sister countries.”
Pressed on whether there was a time frame within which Guyana could expect those DNA results, Scarlett said: “I would undertake to enquire into the specifics of this case and hopefully I would be in a position to pass a report to your commissioner. I would ask my commissioner when I go back home to have a look at this case.”
The burnt remains of the miners were discovered at the Lindo Creek mining camp in June last year.
They were unidentifiable. About a month later, after much lobbying by individuals and organisations, the Guyana Police Force requested assistance from Jamaica. Officers from that country’s police force later arrived here and went to the site following which samples were taken from the remains. Relatives of the dead men were also asked to submit DNA samples. They were promised that the results would be known in two weeks.
However, apart from Commissioner of Police Henry Greene stating last December that one of the men was identified through one of the samples there has been no word on the results. Greene had said at the time that he could not disclose the identity of the person. Since then, whenever he was asked about the DNA results he would remind whoever was doing the asking that the Jamaicans had their own challenges.
Some relatives of the dead miners have since indicated that they have given up ever knowing the results, while others are still wishing for closure through positive identification of their loved ones, which would give them an opportunity to say goodbye.
Owner of the camp where the eight miners died, Leonard Arokium, who discovered the remains of the men, lost his son and his brother both of whom had been working at his mine site. Arokium had stated publicly on many occasions following the June 21 discovery of the burnt bones and skulls that he believed members of the joint services were responsible for the deaths of the men.
The joint services had strongly denied this and said that the now dead infamous Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins and his gang were responsible for the brutal slaying of the men.
Those who were killed at the site were Dax Arokium, Cedric Arokium, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes, Clifton Wong, Lancelot Lee, Bonny Harry and Nigel Torres.
