Local police have requested information from their Venezuelan counterparts through Interpol following reports of the shooting to death of a father and son in the Spanish speaking country, according to crime chief Seelall Persaud who said that they are awaiting a response.
Based on the reports received by this newspaper 52-year-old Orlando Fitzgerald and his 17-year-old son, Jesse, were shot dead on Thursday night, reportedly by Venezuelan soldiers after they refused to stop at a checkpoint. Reports suggest that when warning shots were fired at their boat by the soldiers they returned fire.
While the relatives of the two are saying that the men were robbed and then killed, Guyanese from that area said the men were escaping after robbing several persons in a spree that started since August. Some of the alleged robbery victims have since come forward to tell their stories.
Asked about this, Persaud told Stabroek News that the police are not aware of any robbery reports or any information from Venezuela. He said the only information they have is from relatives and that is that the duo had been shot.
He said too that at the time the men were reportedly killed there was no local law enforcement official around, as the shooting incident did not occur in Guyana.
He said too that local police would not go into any other country to conduct investigations.
One of the alleged robbery victims is a 37-year-old man, who is known to the men as his father grew up with the elder Fitzgerald in Wauna village in the North West. He was reportedly shot in an encounter with the men on August 28 and is still laid up in bed. He lamented that the men had chased his workers from his dredge and took control of it. The man said that to date nothing has come out of the investigation although he had made a report to the police. Ranks reportedly did not act because the alleged incident occurred in Venezuela.
The wife and mother of the two, Marlyn Allick, has strenuously denied the reports of robbery, arguing that the father and son are being framed. She told Stabroek News that the two were beaten and shot and robbed of a large quantity of gold they had.
