The police have told the owner of the Lindo Creek mining camp, where eight men were massacred in 2008, that the investigation is completed and relatives of the dead are now free to uplift their burnt remains.
Leonard Arokium, who owned the camp and whose son and brother were among those killed, told Stabroek News yesterday that Senior Superintendent of Police Winston Cosbert, after making a failed attempt to reach him at home, called and told him that he should visit Eve Leary with a view to uplifting the remains from the Lyken’s Funeral Home.
“I told him I am not coming anywhere but that I would inform the relatives of the men and they can make whatever decision they want to make,” Arokium told this newspaper.
He said that the officer told him that they had finally received the DNA results from Jamaica that confirmed that the remains were those of the dead men and that the investigation was complete.
The camp owner said that he has gotten into contact with some of the relatives but he was unable to get on to others. He said that he would allow the mother of his son and his other siblings to make a decision as it relates to the remains of his son and brother. “I don’t see any reason to collect that [the remains], what use is that to me? That is not what I wanted to find out,” the man said.
In January, the Ministry of Home Affairs had announced that the Jamaica Constabulary Force had signalled to the Guyana Government that it would have provided a full report by the end of that month on the DNA analysis of samples taken from the June 2008 massacre. .
The ministry had 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 killed were Dax Arokium, Cecil Arokium, Clifton Wong, Nigel Torres, Compton Speirs, Bonny Harry, Horace Drakes and Lancelot Lee.
Human remains inclusive of feet, bones and skulls among other body parts were found at the site. The release had said 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.
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. It is unclear if the police will release the results of the investigation.
The Lindo Creek killing was one of three mass murders that stunned the country that year.
The other two: the Lusignan and Bartica massacres also have question marks around them.
