Items recovered from the home of Gregory Smith, the main suspect in Dr Walter Rodney’s bomb blast death, were capable of detonating explosive devices.
Expert witness Nirmal Rohit Kanhai yesterday made this disclosure while he was being cross-examined by attorney Keith Scotland, who represents the interest of Donald Rodney, the brother of the deceased, at the Commis-sion of Inquiry (CoI) into Rodney’s killing.
Kanhai, who was deemed an expert witness in electrical and communication equipment, was at the time reading a statement provided by Trenton Roach, another expert witness, who is scheduled to testify today.
Roach’s statement revealed that he was ordered to report to a police officer by the name of Gentle, who then showed him some electrical equipment and asked him to check them.
Roach, in the statement, said all the devices were found to be in working condition, but what struck his curiosity was that some were found to be receiving police operated frequencies. ‘This was worrying to me… that the monitor was of special interest of me because it was receiving police transmissions very clearly,” Roach said in the statement.
He stated that the frequencies should not have been in the hands of civilians as it would compromise the security of the network, while adding that he later learnt that the equipment was confiscated from a house at Evans Street, Charlestown, where Smith lived. He said he knew Smith because he had attended a joint army-police radio technician course with him.
Kanhai noted that the frequency operated on the walkie-talkie used in the possession of Walter Rodney at the time of his death was used by the state for security and military purposes. The walkie-talkie used in Rodney’s killing was operating on a frequency of 151.025 MHz.
Kanhai stated that Smith had planted explosives in the walkie-talkie that was eventually handed to Walter Rodney. He said Smith had to have removed the speaker from the walkie-talkie, which he described as a Harris Porta-Phone, and installed a relay in its place in order for the device to explode.
Smith, he said, would have connected the relay— a micro-switch— to a detonator and created a rectifier circuit which changes the alternating current from the transformer into a direct current to power the micro-switch.
Kanhai noted that the switch was not manually operated and so it had to have been activated by an electronic signal. He stated that modification was made to be activated by an external signal.
The device, he said, was on from the instance it was picked up by Donald Rodney from Smith. He stated that since no explosion occurred when Smith turned the knob in the parcel which the device was placed in, it cemented his theory that it had to have been externally activated.
And so when Walter Rodney turned the knob in the parcel, it armed the device—bringing the explosives into the circuit—so that the next time a signal came it would activate the detonator and cause an explosion, he said.
Kanhai said some bombs are activated by turning a knob but in Rodney’s case it was not. He added that the components of the device used by Smith in the explosion could have been purchased in any electronics store in Georgetown.
Smith in his book, ‘Assassination Cry of a Failed Revolution,’ had stated that he did not activate the device with any explosive and that there was only a detonator in it. Kanhai said the state had employed Dr. Frank Skuse, a forensic expert who resided in the United Kingdom, to carry out an investigation on Rodney’s killing. He said the then government never released Dr. Skuse’s report and he was not aware of any other report on frequencies used on the night of the explosion.
He added that Dr. Skuse had made recommendations to have him further examine the probability that the device was a Harris Porta-Phone—an electronic device used by the military—but there was no indication that the government facilitated it. Kanhai said the Skuse report was not used in 34 years.
Attorney Basil Williams, who represents the interest of the PNC, questioned if Kanhai was a bomb expert or a medical expert to make such pronouncements and to critique Dr. Skuse’s report. However, Chairman of the Commission Sir Richard Cheltenham said Kanhai was giving his findings based on his experience with the objects found at the scene of the bombing.
Williams said if there were such grave modifications to the walkie-talkie which was handed over to Rodney, he would have felt it. “Would Rodney not have known that it was not? He would have felt that there was two other appendages on it,” he suggested.
In response, Kanhai said that the device was placed in a box and then a parcel. He added that Dr. Skuse’s report stated that the parcel contained a wooden box, which contained a transmitter receiver system, probably wholly or partially a Harris Porta-Phone device and a certain amount of Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosive. He said the box was nailed together and a knob controlled a selector switch which was available to the person or persons in charge of the device. He said the speaker was removed.
Williams stated then that Dr. Skuse was speculating; however, it was drawn to his attention that Dr. Skuse’s report was based on items retrieved at the site of the explosion.
Dr Skuse had identified the device as a Harris Porta-Phone and said that the battery found at the scene was one that was typically used in the Guyana Defence Force (GDF).
Smith, in his book, had indicated that he was operating a toy walkie-talkie but Dr. Skuse’s findings revealed that it was a Harris Porta-Phone that was used. Harris Porta-Phones operated on greater frequencies, while a toy walkie-talkie would operate on a frequency of 27MHz.
Kanhai had stated on Wednesday, during his testimony, that whoever sent that signal to activate the detonator would have had to have been less than two miles away from where the Rodney brothers were. He stated that a person would have been able to transmit a signal from Russell Street to John Street, where the explosion occurred, since the distance between the streets was approximately half a mile. He stated that signals for hand-held sets were limited to 5.4 miles of transmission.
