Ex-soldier David Clarke who was set to be a key witness against Roger Khan is now a free man in the United States.
He appeared in a Brooklyn Federal Court in New York today and was sentenced by Judge John Gleeson to time served. Clarke had been in supervised custody for about three years in the US ever since he was indicted by the US on drug charges. He was not needed to testify against Khan as the latter pleaded guilty.
In court yesterday, Clarke thanked the US government for saving him and his family from the “jaws of death”. He also apologized for the crimes he committed. He did not elaborate and left the court shortly after without speaking to reporters.
Judge Gleeson declared that the case was a remarkable one and Clarke would have a gripping memoir to write.
The US prosecutor in the case Shannon Jones also told the judge that Clarke would not be deported to Guyana and would only have to stay in routine contact with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department.
The sentencing at about 1 pm today was a dramatic end to a case which had been hushed up here but which was deeply linked to the drug trafficking and phantom operations that Khan had been involved in.
Khan and his former lawyer Robert Simels, who is also due for sentencing today, had been charged with attempting to tamper with witnesses in Khan’s drug case. It was believed that they had hatched a plot to silence Clarke as he was believed to be a potent witness. A US informant Selwyn Vaughn however testified against Simels leading to his conviction in that case while Khan had earlier thrown in the towel and settled for a 15-year jail term.
Today’s outcome leaves a host of questions about Khan’s and Clarke’s operations and linkages with the security forces and the Guyana government. At the time that Clarke was ensnared in the activities that led to the US charges he was also the army man in charge of Operation Tourniquet in Buxton. This operation had been aimed at quelling the crime wave but was not successful. Instead, it had been alleged that Clarke was actively working with the criminals and also with Khan to traffic in cocaine.
Clarke had handed himself over to the US authorities after he was indicted in New York.
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.
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 cahoots 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 Khan.
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.
