It cannot be completely ruled out that Gregory Smith, the man accused of causing the 1980 explosion which killed Dr Walter Rodney, was an agent of the security forces, Crime Chief Leslie James said yesterday while being confronted with more holes in the police investigation.
James, resuming his testimony before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into Rodney’s death at the Supreme Court Law Library, stated that there was no evidence to show that the Guyana Police Force investigators had followed up on the premise that Smith could have been an agent.
Rodney, co-leader of the Working People’s Association (WPA), was killed after a walkie-talkie given to him exploded in his lap as he sat in his brother’s car, near John and Bent streets on June 13, 1980.
Under cross-examination yesterday by WPA attorney Christopher Ram, James said there were omissions in the police investigation concerning Smith’s involvement in Rodney’s death and as a result the investigation was “short of thoroughness.”
James is expected to be cross-examined again by Ram in-camera because the lawyer’s questions bordered on issues of national security.
James was asked whether he found it strange that Smith’s girlfriend, Joan Melville, was moved from her position as a confidential secretary in a ministry to the post of a diplomat in the United States, just a short time after Rodney’s killing. He stated that the information was worthy of noting “but it was not strange.”
Ram, however, pressed him if the police had pursued such an oddity and he responded that he could not recall seeing any investigation in police files along that line. He indicated that the police had also failed to interview persons in the army about Smith’s position in the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
James stated that the police had the capacity to do a much more thorough investigation but when questioned if the omissions were deliberate, he said he could not remark.
Chairman of the commission Sir Richard Cheltenham said there seemed to be an “extraordinary series of omissions” and questioned if their “frequency” does not raise suspicion that the lapses were deliberate. However, James maintained that he could not offer his opinion.
“You don’t want to offer an opinion?” Sir Richard probed.
“I can’t offer an opinion, sir,” James stated.
A statement given by a Joel Southwell was found in the police file and it was read to the hearing by commission legal counsel Latchmie Rahamat. In the statement, Southwell stated that a yellow aircraft, bearing the number 8RGR, touched down at the airport on June 17, 1980 and three men disembarked. One started to question him if he knew of a Smith. Southwell said he directed the man to the only Smith he knew working there, but when the man returned he was walking alongside a man different from the Smith he knew.
Southwell told police that the two men boarded the plane and it took off. He said a few days later he began to hear people talking that a Gregory Smith boarded that said plane. He said someone even showed him a photograph of Smith and he identified him as the man who boarded the plane that day. “I was shown a photograph of a soldier,” he said, adding that he immediately identified him as the person he saw.
James agreed that there was a positive identification of the GDF plane and Smith leaving the airport for Kwakwani and that the police, investigating if Smith was indeed in Kwakwani, had failed to question his father, Cecil Smith, about whether he had introduced Gregory Smith to a Robert Vanhouten living in Kwakwani as his son who was a member of the army.
Vanhouten had given a Sergeant Sago a statement that Cecil Smith had introduced him to his son a short while after Rodney’s death. Sago also took a statement from Cecil Smith, who stated that his son was a member of the army but he did not return to Kwakwani after Rodney’s death. Cecil Smith, in the statement, said Gregory Smith had told him that he wanted to join the army and that sometime after he received a postcard from him in the United Kingdom.
He stated that there were rumours circulating that the police were searching for a Gregory Smith and people started to ask him if it was his son but he did not know if it was him. He said his son never returned to where he was living after Rodney’s death.
Ram asked James if the police and the army’s actions pointed to a possible cover-up but James responded, “I don’t know of any cover-ups, sir.”
Ram further questioned whether he saw any evidence that a conspiracy to commit murder was part of the scope of the case. James said he was not in a position to say whether the police had pursued that theory.
He stated that the police’s case on Rodney’s death was closed because Smith had passed away. He added that the police had made an effort to have him brought before the court when he was alive and living in another country but they failed to do so.
Since the police case was closed, Ram asked James to state the conclusion of the case. “It’s part of my duty but I am unable to say,” James replied.
Meanwhile, Commissioner Seenath Jairam said the loopholes in the investigation were part of a jigsaw puzzle. He stated that it was also puzzling that different birth certificates were issued by the Registrar General’s Office to Smith, and that his birth information and his names contradicted one of those on a birth certificate. Smith went by the name of Cyril Johnson on one of his birth certificates.
Attorney Andrew Pilgrim, who represents the Rodney family, said it was strange that seven Police Special Branch files on Rodney would go missing and the police would do little to locate them. He questioned James about why the police did not investigate when the files vanished.
James accepted that it was the police responsibility to guard the files and that the head of the department should be held responsible for its disappearance.
WPA member Dr Omawale is due to testify today.
