Clarke will be sentenced next month on the two drug charges, according to court documents, but it is not clear if he pleaded guilty to the charges or if there was a trial at which he was found guilty, since there seems to be some secrecy surrounding his case. Clarke was to be a key witness against Roger Khan and he was also the target of the witness tampering bid by Khan and his then lawyer Robert Simels.
Public statements were only made by President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, after a report appeared in the Stabroek News earlier this year on his indictment.
The organisation that Clarke served for 20 years, and not with distinction according to President Jagdeo, refused to offer any comment on him and senior GDF officers declined even to discuss him privately.
For his part, Commodore Gary Best recently told Stabroek News when contacted that the army he now headed had no comment to make on Clarke either now or in the future.
This newspaper had attempted to contact Chief of Staff, Brigadier (Rtd) Michael Atherly, who was heading the army at the time Clarke was alleged to have been working with the criminals and trafficking in narcotics. Around this time there was also a battle between the army hierarchy and the Commander-in-Chief on the promotion of Clarke. Brigadier (rtd) Atherly has refused to speak.
Attempts to contact Brigadier Edward Collins, who was number two at that time and who later took over the helm of the GDF, have been futile.
This newspaper has been reliably informed that Clarke was in the GDF up to 2006 when he was indicted in the US during the period Collins was in charge.
Given the serious charges levelled against Clarke and considering that he was once the commander of the Buxton anti-crime operations, observers feel that both the army and the Commander-in-Chief/Defence Board should explain why the public was not apprised of the indictment and the security risks posed by the defendant to the anti-crime and anti-drug trafficking campaign.
At the time Clarke was accused of working with some of Guyana’s most dangerous criminals, he was heading an operation – Tourniquet – set up to quell the criminal activities in the village of Buxton. While he was in charge there many had concerns about the ineffectiveness of the campaign and about the continuing levels of major crime.
And while he has been accused of working with the criminals, an accusation that came first from convicted drug trafficker Khan, he was also apparently along with family members funnelling drugs out of Guyana to the US.
‘Confidential information’
Following a report 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 officer was working with the criminals in the village. 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 half completed, 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 repeated 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. The Commander-in-Chief’s statement did not address why the army had not moved against Clarke given the seriousness of the allegations. Clarke left the army upon his indictment. Sources say he travelled to the US and handed himself over to the authorities.
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 Atherly, based on the recommendation of his battalion commander.
The commander’s recommendation was said to have come as a consequence of 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 following the recommendation of a promotion panel at the battalion level that had reviewed the ex-officer’s annual confidential reports and assessed his suitability.
Clarke was subsequently promoted.
Some are of the view that if the President knew that Clarke was indeed working with criminals, as he and others have said, then he should not only have ensured that the officer was never promoted but he should also have ensured that he was dismissed from the GDF. The head of state said when asked, that he could not have ordered a court-martial against Clarke as he was not willing for those who supplied the information to be exposed, and since it was not a “kangaroo court” system such a move would have been worthless.
However, it has been pointed out that if President Jagdeo was convinced and had evidence to support the accusation that Clarke, an army officer, was in fact a criminal and not working in the national interest then more should have been done to get him out of the system and prosecuted.
But instead Clarke was able to opt for the 20-year retirement facility upon his indictment and was granted this by the GDF without a word to the public.
At the time President Jagdeo had refused to promote Clarke, senior army sources 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 at the other locations where he had been stationed.
Drug-trafficking charges
However, even though he was indicted in 2006, around the same time Roger Khan was indicted, it was only earlier this year the matter was reported in the media through the agency of this newspaper. This was after Khan had filed a motion stating that he had never worked in cahoots with Clarke and the former army officer had worked with criminals while he was in the army. The testimony was picked up by Stabroek News from US court documents and formed the basis for the first news item on Clarke’s case.
The US authorities are still not revealing much about Clarke’s case, but 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.
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 neutralized by the two along with Khan.
When the US drug 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 links to the criminal enterprise in Buxton.
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 had been 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.
Clarke was charged shortly after Khan was described as a drug trafficker in the 2006 US drug report.
‘New theory’
In the first meeting between Simels and the US government’s confidential source (CS), last year before he and the others were charged with witness tampering, Simels had allegedly told the CS that prosecutors had been saying for almost two years that the case against Khan was a “straightforward drug case.”
However, he said, about one month before they were expected to go to trial in April last year “…they come with a whole new theory of the case. This new theory of the case is everything about Roger’s phantom gang as they put it, it should be evidence because they want to prove that while he started out as a patriot, he then used that phantom force to help him in the drug business, and that he would murder rivals.”
According to a typed record of that conversation, made by the US government and seen by this newspaper, Simels is reported to have told the CS that the government was alleging that Khan murdered Dave Persaud, who was killed in front of Palm Court Restaurant and Bar, and boxing coach Donald Allison.
CS: “Why did they make the change?”
Simels: “Well, we didn’t know it but we found out that David Clarke is now telling them [that] Roger is a murdering thug…”
Simels further told the CS that the prosecution knew the defence would have made several allegations about Clarke during his tenure in Buxton, the main one being that he acted in concert with the criminals in the village.
The lawyer said in the conversation that because of the prosecution’s theory the defence had to let the jury know during the trial what Guyana was like because people in Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island could “never fathom what goes on there [Guyana].”
Simels: “As I said to the judge this is not [US President Barack] Obama and [US Secretary of State] Hillary [Clinton] saying bad things about each other. Down there when that happens they just kill each other…”
The lawyer then told the CS that Khan had told him he had to find him (the CS) to help demonstrate to the jury what happened in Guyana.
CS: “But how important really is David Clarke to this case?”
Simels: “He is everything to their case now. Their whole case is based upon him.”
CS: “But there’s nothing which can be done about this guy, you’re saying?”
Simels noted that Clarke would be the only prosecution witness who could actually say he spoke to Khan during the time Khan reportedly committed the offences.
Simels: “…It would be helpful if you could sort of tell me what you do know about him, how you came to meet David Clarke or what you came to know about Roger, how you met Roger. Could you like give me a… your version, not Roger’s version which is sometimes a little…”
The CS related to Simels that he had a cousin, who is now serving 20 years in a US jail for a drive-by shooting, who once worked for Khan and it was while he was attempting to assist his cousin that he was eventually introduced to the “boss.” He said that while in 2003 he knew of Khan and would help Khan from time to time it was in 2005, that “I met the director.”
The CS said it was believed that the escapees and their cohorts were being supported by elements of the military in Buxton but he had no firsthand knowledge of that.
Simels: “And did you know David Clarke?”
CS: “Yes I knew the guy… because of the fact he is related to Donald Allison. Donald Allison is my neighbour.”Simels: “When you said ‘boss’ earlier were you talking about Roger?”
CS: “Yea, the boss so… he ran things.”
The CS said he and Clarke’s brother, Hubert, whom Simels referred to as ‘Dumb Dumb’ instead of ‘Dun Dun,’ were schoolmates and that the brothers were from Agricola.
According to the CS, he knew Clarke was in charge of the operation in Buxton while he was captain Asked by Simels if he knew whether Clarke was favourable to the people in Buxton the CS said yes.
CS: “Well yea, I would take it that way. Because I mean he was in charge, these guys were able to come out, do certain things and get back into Buxton, somebody had to be sanctioning it. Somebody had to be sanctioning it, and it had to be somebody who was very much at the scene. Because it’s the only way I could have seen them doing that.”
