The Jamaica Constabulary Force has told the Guyana Government that it will provide a full report by the end of this month on the DNA analysis of samples taken from the Lindo Creek massacre, where eight miners were killed in June 2008.
This is according to a press release released yesterday by the Ministry of Home Affairs, in response to a report in the Kaieteur News last Tuesday where the costs of the storing of the remains of the Lindo Creek victims and the financial procedures for such were queried.
The ministry noted that evidence found at the crime scene suggested that persons in the Arokium mining camp, at Lindo Creek, Upper Berbice River, were burnt along with the camp to the extent that none of them was identifiable. Those believed killed were Dax Arokium, Cecil Arokium, Clifton Wong, Nigel Torres, Compton Speirs, Bonny Harry, Horace Drakes and Lancelot Lee.
Suspected human remains inclusive of feet, bones and skulls among other body parts were found, the release said, while adding that the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago and Major Investigation Task Force of the Jamaica Constabulary Force assisted in processing the scene. The investigators advised that the identification of the persons murdered could only have been determined via DNA analysis, the release added. As a result, it said samples of the human remains recovered from the Crime Scene were taken by the Jamaican Team (which included a Forensic Pathologist) to the Jamaican Forensic Laboratory for analysis, while, the remainder was stored at the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour.
“The [Jamaica Constabulary Force] submitted a report of a partial analysis that was conducted and they promised to submit the full report by the end of January 2012,” the release said, while adding that “the remains stored at the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour forms a vital part of the evidence collected.”
The release explained that it was usual for remains of deceased persons in murder investigations to be disposed of after a post-mortem examination is concluded by handing over the body to relatives of the deceased for funeral. It was pointed out that in the Lindo Creek case, which is an exceptional one, the remains were not identified and therefore could not have been handed over to anyone nor disposed of by the state due to emotional issues normally associated with relatives of murder victims.
The result is that apart from the samples taken to Jamaica, the remainder is still stored at the Lyken’s Funeral Parlour at the expense of the state.
“Because of the controversy surrounding the Lindo Creek incident, the Guyana Police Force sought to exercise caution in the storage of the remains of the victims. There was no viable option available at the time to facilitate storage of the remains neither did the Guyana Police Force anticipate that it would have taken a long period of time to obtain the results of the DNA,” the release said.
It was stressed that no financial regulation was breached and that the expenditure was charged to the correct Line Item –‘6294 -Other’ in the current budgetary allocation of the Guyana Police Force. This Line item caters for payment of expenses relative to cases of unnatural death, where the Guyana Police Force have to intervene, which invariably leads to situations where they have to engage the services of funeral parlours for the transportation and storage of dead bodies prior to the disposal, by way of burial by relatives of the deceased or the State, it was explained
The ministry yesterday sought to “reiterate that at all times appropriate efforts are made to ensure that money allocated to the ministry and its departments is expended in such a manner that value is received for such expenditure.”
Almost four years later the Lindo Creek murders remain unsolved. There had been strong views expressed that corrupt elements of the security forces might have been responsible for the murders in a grab for gold while the police have blamed a gang headed by the now dead fugitive Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins. The Lindo Creek killing was one of three mass murders that stunned the country that year (2008). The other two; the Lusignan and Bartica massacres also have question marks around them.
