Bharrat Jagdeo when he was president, ordered the Military Central Intel-ligence Division (MCID) which was pursuing drug trafficker Roger Khan, shuttered fearing that it may have also led to the arrest of senior government functionaries, a retired army officer has said.
The army’s MCID had intercepted Khan – who in currently in an American prison having been convicted of drug trafficking charges there – on December 4, 2002 at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara. Khan, along with Haroon Yahya and Sean Belfield who was then a serving policeman, were arrested with weapons and a spy computer. They were intercepted by the MCID in a bulletproof vehicle in which was discovered an arsenal of weaponry (including military type assault weapons, some fitted with night vision telescopic sights), Uzi sub-machine guns, assorted ammunition, silencers, and also bulletproof vests and a lap-top computer cum scanner capable of intercepting both land and cellular telephone calls.
The MCID was subsequently disbanded and Khan said that he was involved in the ‘phantom squad’ which was blamed for many killings.
In 2009, Khan’s former lawyer Robert Simels in court had claimed that the ‘spy’ computer was purchased through the Guyana Government and that then Minister of Health and current Minister of Agriculture Dr Leslie Ramsammy was responsible for the collection of the equipment and organising the training of Khan, in the use of the computer. Ramsammy has denied the claims. Following the revelations in a US court, then PNCR parliamentarian the late Debra Backer at a press conference had said that available evidence pointed to the Bharrat Jagdeo administration protecting or facilitating Khan’s activities, with the most recent connection being the alleged aid provided to him by Ramsammy.
At the time, she said that the “long association” between Khan and the administration was evident as early as 2002, when Khan and his accomplices were intercepted by the MCID. It still remains a mystery, she had said, how Khan could have acquired this array of weapons and equipment without the help of the Government, particularly the ‘spy’ computer. MCID was not only pressured to return it to Khan but was disbanded for its pains, she added, while the case against Khan and the two others was subsequently dismissed by the late Magistrate Jerrick Stepheney.
Following the freeing of Khan, he continued with his phantom squad activities.
In a letter in Saturday’s edition of the Stabroek News, retired Lieutenant Colonel George Gomes referred to Jagdeo’s recent statements at a Freedom House press conference that the Army may have decided not to go after the criminals during the crime wave of the 2000’s.
However, Gomes said that as a result of the crime wave, the GDF established the MCID, which had as its aim, to go not only to go after the known criminal elements, but also to pursue the architects of the crime wave.
“Jagdeo ordered the closure of the MCID, thus bringing to an end the process that would have ended the criminal activities,” he said. “Jagdeo’s major fear was that this department, apart from exposing the criminal architects, may have also led to the arrest of senior government functionaries,” the former army officer added.
Khan was eventually held in Suriname on June 15, 2006. Suriname’s then Minister of Justice Chandrikapersad Santokhi deemed Khan a threat to national security and linked him to more murder plots – the assassination of key government and judicial officials – in that country. By 29th June 2006, Khan was expelled from Suriname and, on 30th June was arraigned before a US court on a charge of “conspiring to import cocaine” in the USA. He was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
