The police were yesterday granted an additional 72 hours to keep three of the four men held over the murder of political activist Courtney Crum-Ewing in custody and lawyers have since alleged that one of them was beaten by the police.
Attorney at law Glen Hanoman last evening charged that police had beaten murder suspect Jason Abdulla on the soles of his feet and in an attempt to hide the injuries quietly went to the court to ask for additional time so that the injuries could heal. He said that he made a report of the allegation on Wednesday and requested that Abdulla be taken for medical attention but this was not done. Another of Abdulla’s counsel, Latchmie Rahamat told Stabroek News subsequently that minutes earlier her client reported to her that during the day police had taken him to the Georgetown Hospital. She said that he reported that the doctor who saw him was a foreign national and that he wrote on a medical that he had swelling and injuries to the bottom of his foot and subsequently placed it in a cast. On his return to the Eve Leary Police Station, she alleged that he was accompanied back to the hospital by three ranks who instructed the doctor to remove the cast and rewrite the medical.
Contacted for a comment on Hanoman’s allegation, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum had a different account. He said that since Abdulla’s arrest, an attorney visited him multiple times without incident or complaint. He said that it was only hours after he had given the police a caution statement that he made an allegation of being beaten. He confirmed that the suspect was taken to Georgetown Hospital yesterday.
Blanhum told Stabroek News that the suspect was seen and examined by a doctor. The doctor, he said indicated to police that he could not made an assessment until an x ray was done. Nevertheless, Abdulla maintained that he had suffered “severe injuries” to his feet and as a result the doctor directed that the patient would have to undergo an x ray but he decided to place a cast on his foot in the interim. He was then taken to another medical institution where the x ray was done. Stabroek News understands that this was done because the machine at the Georgetown Hospital was not operational.
The ranks returned to the Georgetown Hospital with the x ray result and after looking at it the doctor removed the cast and issued the police with a medical certificate.
Blanhum told Stabroek News that the beating allegation will be investigated.
Blanhum also said that based on the reports he received earlier in the day, the court granted the police’s request to keep Abdulla, ex-policeman Sean Hinds and Okenny Fraser in custody for an additional 72 hours. The time for them to be kept without such an order would have ended yesterday afternoon. Blanhum informed that no such application was made for Kwame McCoy since he was arrested after the trio.
“All four are in custody and we are continuing our investigations”, Blanhum said.
An infuriated Hanoman yesterday said that the secrecy surrounding the police’s filings of requests for extension for persons to be kept in custody is a violation of one’s liberty as those accused persons are denied the right to represent themselves before the judge who is hearing the application. In this case, it was acting Chief Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards who heard the police’s application and later granted the order.
Abdulla who has strong links to the PPP/C was arrested around 4 pm on Monday in Albouystown.
Ascertain
Hanoman told Stabroek News that he had contacted the Chief Justice’s office to ascertain when the matter was going to be heard so that he could be present to represent his client. He said that his efforts were unsuccessful and he could not even get confirmation that an application was filed. Subsequently he learnt that the matter had been heard and that the police were given an extension. ”I contacted the office and asked to be informed if the matter is to come up so that I can be there. I was never contacted”, he said while lamenting that his client is being unfairly treated.
He expressed alarm at the continuing practice of extensions being “granted in secret”. The attorney stressed that this should never be. “As least these men must be given an opportunity to be heard”, he said, adding that the police are being allowed to bring “flimsy affidavits” asking for 72 hours extension to the court. “That is undemocratic and unconstitutional”, he charged.
Hanoman informed that he saw his client on Wednesday night at the Eve Leary Police Station. At the time he said Abdulla was limping and he told him that he had been beaten on the bottom of his feet by police investigators. He said he did not see the swelling or the injuries as his client was wearing shoes at the time.
The attorney said that he later made a report at the very police station and ask that his client be taken to see a doctor. He said that he spent about an hour there and this was not done. He said that attorney Euclin Gomes who is also representing Abdulla visited yesterday and the situation was the same; he had not been taken for medical attention. Gomes again informed ranks of his client’s complaint.
He said that while at the police station on Wednesday he accused police of intentionally delaying his client’s visit to the doctor because they wanted the swelling to go down first.
Hanoman said that his client was given a copy of a statement purportedly written by Hinds. He said that that statement is now in his possession and he expressed the view that this is a police tactic whenever identification parades are to be done.
Hanoman told Stabroek News that in the statement Hinds alleged that Abdullah implicated Fraser in Crum-Ewing’s murder.
Rahamat who is also representing McCoy said that her client is distressed. She said that he is yet to be interviewed. According to the attorney when arrested two allegations were put to her client: one for murder and the other for an assault committed on newspaper columnist Freddie Kissoon. He denied both she said.
Contacted, attorney at law Adrian Thompson who is representing Fraser said that police are holding his client “without evidence”. He said that while he is knowledgeable that police have been granted additional time, he has filed Habeas Corpus proceedings which are to be heard sometime today.
Crum-Ewing was shot dead on the evening of March 10, 2015 at Diamond, East Bank Demerara, where he was urging residents to vote against the incumbent PPP/C at the May 11 general elections. He was shot five times, including three times in the head.
For weeks prior to his death, he had held a one-man protest outside then Attorney General Anil Nandlall’s office, calling for his resignation over controversial statements he made during a telephone conversation with a Kaieteur News reporter that was made public. Nandlall has since denied any involvement in this crime.
On August 7 last year Regan Rodrigues, called ‘Grey Boy’ was charged with Crum-Ewing’s murder after ballistics tests carried out on an illegal .32-calibre gun found at Rodrigues’ Georgetown residence linked it to the murder scene. He was also charged with illegal possession of the gun and ammunition.
On January 11, he was freed of the gun and ammunition charges following a trial.
Rajput Narine, the ex-bodyguard of Nandlall was also taken into custody on August 7 last year and questioned but was released without being charged.
