While the US authorities are still not revealing much about Clarke’s case, a brief letter written by his lawyer Gary Schoer to Judge Raymond J Dearie on November 2 and seen by this newspaper, asked for the sentencing to be postponed to December 4 at 11.30 am.
The judge granted the order and has given the lawyer up to November 23 to make his sentencing submissions, while the prosecution will have up to November 30 to respond.
According to the first charge, between October 2003 and April 5, 2005, Clarke, his brother Hubert Clarke called ‘Dun Dun’ and Hubert’s girlfriend, Shelly Mcqune, together with others, did knowingly and intentionally, conspire to import more than five kilogrammes of cocaine into the US. On the second charge, between the same dates, they also conspired to distribute the cocaine in the US.
There is no further information on the case and it is not clear if Clarke and the others, who would also be sentenced on the same date, pleaded guilty or were tried.
Clarke’s case is of great interest on the local shores because not only was he a major in the army, but he has been publicly accused by President Bharrat Jagdeo of being in cohort with the Buxton criminals while he was stationed there as head of an operation set up to stem the criminal upsurge in that village several years ago.
This accusation also came from convicted drug trafficker Roger Khan, who had indicated that Clarke was expected to be used as a star witness by the US authorities had he gone to trial. During the trial of Robert Simels and Arianne Irving, Khan’s former lawyers, on witness tampering charges recently, Clarke had been named as a target to be intimidated and/or neutralised.
Following publication in this newspaper about Clarke being in a US jail on drug trafficking charges, Jagdeo revealed that he had received “confidential information” from Buxtonians that the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officer was working with criminals. At the time Jagdeo, who said he was “vindicated” in blocking Clarke’s promotion for a year and ordering that he return home from an overseas training stint he had been halfway through, said he could not order a court-martial as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces since he wanted to protect the identities of the informers. He had also said, just a few months ago, that he was still not willing to reveal the persons’ identities.
“I have made it clear about my position on Clarke because… I knew about Clarke …the information on Clarke came from people whom I know in Buxton. And I would never ever, ever betray their confidence because they told me this in confidence. And I had it. It was clear. I shared it but you had a cabal that was pushing it but of course he didn’t get to move forward. …this happens routinely, people share information,” Jagdeo said at a recent press conference.
In 2003, the President had created a stir when he had refused Clarke’s promotion; the only one he denied from a long list of recommended officers. The then captain was recommended by a promotions panel chaired by the then army Chief of Staff, Brigadier Michael Atherly, based on the recommendation of his battalion commander.
The commander’s recommendation was said to be based on Clarke’s attitude and performance in his substantive rank, his suitability for promotion to higher rank and authority as well as his suitability for retention in the army.
That assessment was reached based on the recommendation of a promotion panel at the battalion level, which reviewed the ex-officer’s annual confidential reports and assessed his suitability.
Clarke was subsequently promoted.
He was charged shortly after Khan was described as a drug trafficker in the 2006 US drug report. When the report was published, Khan had made “assorted accusations” against Clarke and others at a meeting in March 2006 with US officials at the Ocean View Hotel. He had sought to provide “evidence” that Clarke had worked in concert with Shawn Brown, one of the five February 23, 2002 prison escapees. He had alleged that during Clarke’s tenure as head of ‘Operation Tourniquet’, he was in league with Brown, who was responsible for kidnapping former US diplomat Stephen Lesniak in April 2003.
Following his arrest in Trinidad in June 2006 and his subsequent indictment on drug charges, Khan had sought to deny that he and Clarke could have been co-conspirators in exporting drugs, arguing that he had exposed the former officer’s criminal links.
And in a motion filed through his lawyers prior to him throwing in the towel and pleading guilty to drug trafficking, Khan had alleged that the then officer was so involved in criminal activities in Buxton that he delayed finding Lesniak, even though information about the location of the kidnapped man was provided.
The US had sought to disallow any evidence about Clarke’s alleged criminal activities from the trial as they saw it as “self serving” for Khan.
When President Jagdeo had refused to promote Clarke, senior army sources at that time had told Stabroek News that nothing in the man’s record indicated that he had behaved in an inappropriate manner either during his assignment in Buxton or in the other locations at which he was stationed.
However, this was not the picture the President had subsequently painted.
