Relatives of 20-year-old Charles Clarke, who the police issued a wanted bulletin for on Tuesday in connection with last Wednesday’s attacks in the city, say Clarke has been out of the country since May this year.
The young man’s relatives told Stabroek News last evening that he left Guyana for Trinidad and Tobago in October last year to work with a construction company. They said he returned to Guyana for the Easter celebrations this year and returned to the islands later that year. They did not disclose where Clarke is, since according to the young man’s aunt, “the Guyana Police Force cannot be trusted”.
She said that on many occasions she would question whether the young men being sought by the police indeed are engaged in illegal activities, and as such when she opened yesterday’s newspapers and saw a photograph of her overseas based nephew, “now I know how the police could pick up the wrong people and turn them into criminals”.
The man’s grandmother said that she became restless ever since the photograph of her grandson appeared in the newspapers yesterday and she has been receiving numerous phone calls from relatives and friends of Clarke who asked if he was in Guyana. She said that the man is known to “mix up with the wrong company” but “to accuse him of being involved in the shooting last week is unbelievable”. The woman related that relatives are in possession of Clarke’s recent pay slips which gave an indication of his whereabouts in the Caribbean.
The woman said that as far as she could recall, her grandson was placed before the courts on one occasion back in 2007 when he was charged with being in possession of marijuana. She said Clarke had visited a friend who resided at Punt Trench Dam when the police carried out a raid of a house nearby. She said Clarke was arrested and later placed on some $50,000 bail; the case was subsequently dismissed, the woman related.
She also said that Clarke’s photograph which appeared in yesterday’s newspapers was taken when the man was arrested in 2007 by the police for the narcotics offence. She said she and other relatives approached the police on the issue yesterday but the lawmen paid them no attention but instead informed that the police will only cooperate with them when they disclose Clarke’s whereabouts in the Caribbean.
The man’s relatives said that the police visited their home over the weekend in search of Clarke but they were laughed at by persons nearby, who related that the young man was overseas. Clarke’s relatives are calling on the Commissioner of Police to ensure that proper investigations are carried out before wanted bulletins are issued, since according to the man’s aunt, “the police would brand an innocent man and make him a criminal”.