In a surprise turn, the Ministry of Home Affairs today expressed disappointment with the police over the probe into the September 11, 2010 death of Sheema Mangar.
Mangar was run over by a car on North Road, close to Camp Street after she struggled with the driver to recover a cell phone which had been taken from her.
The police and the ministry had been frequently criticized by Mangar’s family and others over the sloth in the probe and the failure to produce DNA results from what was thought to be critical evidence.
Today, a statement from the ministry said it has requested that the Barbados Forensic Laboratory expedite a report on the second submission it made in the Mangar case.
“Apart from the efforts of the Guyana Police Force, the Ministry is now in touch with the Head of the Laboratory with a request that the report on the second submission be expedited,” the ministry said in a press release.
This is the third time in as many years that the ministry has sought to assure Mangar’s relatives that it was doing everything possible to obtain the reports from Barbados.
Twenty-year-old Mangar was robbed of her Blackberry on the afternoon of September 11, 2010 while awaiting transportation. She was then knocked down and dragged from that location into the intersection at Camp and Church streets. Mangar died hours later at the St Joseph Mercy Hospital from multiple injuries.
Subsequently, pieces of fabric that seemingly matched the Demerara Bank employee’s uniform were found stuck beneath a car and retrieved for testing.
Today, the ministry said it recently reconfirmed that two submissions were made to the lab on November 5, 2010 and August 30, 2011, respectively. It said that a report on the first submission was received in August 2011 when a Guyana Police Force representative travelled to Barbados to make a second submission.
However, it was only recently revealed that the Barbados lab restarted operations late 2011, having been closed for repairs from 2009 to 2011, yet it continued to accept submissions.
The ministry says it will maintain a close interest in this matter as it joins with the woman’s grieving parents in ensuring that justice is served.
In September last year, Stabroek News had reported that DNA tests conducted in Barbados on a strand of Mangar’s hair and a blood sample recovered from an impounded car did not yield a positive match.
It was clarified to Stabroek News recently that the other samples sent to Barbados in August last year are not a critical component of the case as they were only sent for comparative purposes to confirm that they belonged to the dead woman.
Mangar’s mother Radica told Stabroek News last year that when she approached the police one day shy of the two-year anniversary police had nothing new to tell her. She had said that all she knew was that a hair sample was in Barbados.
She said that she spoke to a senior officer who told her that investigators were awaiting the results of the sample sent to Barbados. He could give not give a reason for the delay or say when the results would be expected.
