Tragedy is something the Cleto family knows all too well and it seems there is no justice in sight. When Sebastian Cleto was beaten to death in the New Amsterdam prison in 2011, relatives believed it was an open and shut case until those said to be responsible managed to escape from the penitentiary. Then when his uncle, police corporal Romein Cleto was gunned down while on duty, they thought no stone would be left unturned to ensure the killers were caught. Three weeks later, they are still awaiting a positive word from the force. While no one has been placed before the courts, during the last few days several persons including a woman have been detained.
For relatives, wounds were still raw when they were faced with a second tragedy. They say they are baffled at the way the force has treated them. In the case of Sebastian they say they have heard nothing more since the escape and are unsure whether the perpetrators were charged.
Things began to slope downwards in May 2011, when relatives were informed that Sebastian was injured and was being transferred from the New Amsterdam Hospital to Georgetown. At the hospital, relatives of the 22-year-old North West District man, who was on remand for murder, found him unconscious with his head heavily bandaged. He had been badly beaten.
He died several days later while a patient of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Recently, his aunt Maureen told this newspaper that the family had heard nothing about the matter or the persons who were implicated.
She said the last bit of information, they had received was that the “person who they hold up escape from prison”. Maureen was referring to Rickford La Fleur of Circle Street, Skeldon. He, along with three others, had reportedly removed boards from the northern section of the wall in the male block of the prison and then ripped out zinc sheets from the eastern side of the fence to make the daring getaway.
The woman appealed to the prison officials and the police to work hard to ensure that they have closure in this matter.
Police distant
Meanwhile, a still grief-stricken Lilian Cleto told Stabroek News that she is yet to get any information from the police on how her son was shot, what progress is being made with the investigation and what happened to his haversack and valuables which he would have taken with him to work on the day that he died.
When this newspaper visited relatives, they were still trying to come to grips with what had occurred.
Lilian recalled that around 6 pm a man telephoned and identified himself as a policeman from the Brickdam Police Station. She said she was told that Cleto “met in accident”. At that point, she said, she believed it was some sort of motor vehicular accident.
The woman, who at the time was at another son’s residence on the East Coast Demerara, said she was unwell that day and her voice was shaky. She recalled that the policeman asked to speak to someone else. She said her son spoke to the policeman and at the end of that conversation he said, “mommy pack ya bags I gon carry ya home”.
She said when she arrived at her Bent Street home she met her daughter who had just returned from the hospital. “Romein died mommy,” is what the teary-eyed woman recalled being told. She said all she was told was that her son had been shot. Lilian said she was in disbelief and the following day she went to the Brickdam Police Station for permission to see the body.
According to her, she was told she had to wait until 7 the next morning when the post-mortem examination was scheduled to be done. She said she saw the body but never got an update from the police on exactly how her son was killed. They were not even told how many times he had been shot.
“No. The police ain’t tell me nothing,” she responded when asked if police had not told her what happened that night.
The woman said all the information she gathered was from what she would have heard from people or read in the newspaper.
After the PME, she said, the police took over things.
The woman said that because of the state she was in, she did not have the strength to ask questions. “It was like my world come to an end,” she said amid sobs.
She said she went back to the police about one week after the funeral to find out what happened to her son’s clothing. This would have been the casual clothing that he went to work in. She explained that her son would usually change into his uniform at work.
She noted that during that visit she returned the police kit that was at her home and she was given a bag with her son’s casual clothing which should have been in his haversack. Along with the clothing was a hat, three pairs of black socks and a pair of rubber slippers.
Relatives told Stabroek News that the disappearance of the haversack was a bit strange. They noted that personal documents and his boots were among the things missing.
Lilian said when she enquired about his cellular phone, she was told that it would be kept as part of the investigation and once that has been completed it would be handed over.
Upset relatives said they have received little support and expressed the view that this happened because they were Amerindians. A woman identified as Cleto’s aunt said he had devoted too much of his life to the force for his mother and his relatives to be treated the way that they are being treated.
Justice
“I want justice because is my child and I want to know really who do this thing to him,” the mother said. Cleto, 25, was the last of her 11 children and to Lilian he was her baby.
She urged the police to do more to find who was responsible for the killing. “Why they do such thing to my son?” she questioned, adding, “he died like when you shoot an animal and I want to know what is the reason they could kill my son in that way.” She said she cries everyday whenever she remembers him.
She recalled that she last spoke with him around 1 pm on the day he died. He had enquired from her what she had cooked. She said he then hurried down to the Bent Street address to eat his meal of “curry chicken”, not realising that she was on the East Coast. She said she last saw him about three days before the incident.
Maureen expressed doubt that the family will one day get justice. “You ain’t gon get no whole story. To me it gon just drag out,” she said
Cleto, a native of Region One joined the Force in 2007. He had always wanted to be a policeman.
