President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday said that his administration is “very committed” to launching an investigation into allegations made in the US during the Robert Simels trial, but it would be done by the police.
He once again staunchly rejected calls by the opposition parties to have a commission of enquiry done into all aspects of the revelations.
“From the first instance I said the police should deal with this matter. Once any act of criminality is committed on our soil, it has to be thoroughly investigated and not by a commission of inquiry [but] by the law enforcement agencies,” the President said on Thursday when asked about the issue at the commissioning of the East la Penitence health centre.
Testimony in the Simels trial has linked the government to confessed drug trafficker Roger Khan and more specifically Minister of Health Dr Leslie Ramsammy, as having been in contact with Khan and also authorising the purchase of the infamous spy equipment that was seized from Khan in 2003. Both the government and Ramsammy have denied the allegation and while testimony in the US court stated that Simels had exported the said equipment back to the US, the police and the government have stressed that the equipment is here. Commissioner of Police Henry Greene recently briefly produced two items for the media.
While speaking to reporters the President again mentioned that the Commissioner has written to his American counterparts and he has been told that he has to wait until the case is over “and we are still waiting, but he has to conduct an investigation.”
Asked why the police did not begin their investigation by merely checking the immigration records to verify entry into the country by a Carl Chapman, who court documents and testimonies indicated came to Guyana to train Khan and others on the use of the spy equipment, the President said the company that sold the equipment bears some responsibility.
He qualified his statement by adding: “We never restrict the export of the equipment, it was the US government, so assuming Ramsammy signed this letter or even Jagdeo or Luncheon and said ‘we want you to sell this equipment to Guyana’, the company had to seek permission from the US government because it was the US government that was prohibiting the export not Guyana. So even if they had my approval they still couldn’t sell it to Guyana because they had to seek permission from the exporting country. Did they seek permission? The [answer] is no, so clearly the company has to be held responsible… if you had a letter from God himself… they had to seek the US permission saying we have a request now from God and we would like to export the equipment is God the right person to export the equipment to.”
As an example to what he was talking about, the President mentioned that when Guyana wants to bring certain weapons into the country it had to seek permission from the exporting government.
“So we need to ask these questions because… you see we don’t know what went on in the US court and that’s what we are trying to find out and to get help from the US government.”
The President pointed out that Simels was convicted of witness tampering and while a lot of allegations were made the investigation has to be done on the basis of fact.
He said that Ramsammy, who was listening in on the interview, has made it clear that he is willing to subject himself to an investigation “we have said it is the police who should investigate.”
Ramsammy’s
signature
Asked what would be the position should a letter be produced with the minister’s signature giving permission to purchase the equipment, the President said: “But that’s it, we need to see the stuff. And even if he had done that, I don’t know if he had said he has not signed any such document, so we would have to… I don’t want to deal with hypothetical, I could deal with a hundred hypothetical [situations] but at this point in time what the government is committed to is to get the police to investigate . . .”
The revelations in the US court flowed mainly from the testimony of Selwyn Vaughn, a paid US informant who said he was a member of Khan’s ‘Phantom Squad’. More claims were made later when Simels took the stand in his own defence.
Vaughn made a string of disclosures including telling jurors that Khan had connections to the government through Ramsammy.
