We reported yesterday that several people had been taken into custody in order to assist the police in their investigations into the murders of Isaiah and Joel Henry, as well as Haresh Singh. A little over a week ago the GPF had offered a $3 million reward for information leading to the prosecution of those responsible for the crime, and Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum on Thursday told this newspaper that the arrests had been made based on the information the police had received as a consequence of the reward being offered.
Whether this is a promising development or just another blind alley, only time will tell. Two weeks ago this column had argued that the police should be given space to pursue their inquiries without having to give a detailed account of how these were proceeding. That, however, was before the DNA results had been returned from St Lucia. When those did arrive it was learnt that the DNA on a cigarette butt found at the secondary crime scene where the bodies of the Henry cousins had been placed, did not match that of any of the original suspects who had been held.
This was clearly a setback for the police in terms of their original hypothesis about who had committed the crime, while the announcement of a $3 million reward did nothing to fortify public confidence in their efforts. If anything, it appeared to indicate that the investigators had reached an impasse and had run out of ideas. Attorney for the Henry family, Nigel Hughes, was of the view that the money would have been infinitely better spent paying to bring the Argentine Forensic Anthropology team here which had earlier offered to assist in probing the murders.
This offer had originally been made a month ago, and had been announced in a joint statement from the GPF, the Guyana Human Rights Association and the law firm of Hughes, Fields and Stoby. The team was to comprise a forensic pathologist, a forensic anthropologist, a forensic radiologist and a criminologist, and was said to have wide experience in criminal investigations. Ultimately, however, it would have to be the government which brought the team here, and the government, it seems, had no intention of doing so.
On Monday Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn told the media that the administration did not intend to go beyond its “normal lines” of engagement in respect of solving the murders. In these kinds of cases, he said, it was the norm to retain overseas agencies from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. While the Minister clearly ruled out the Argentinians, it was not as if he indicated he was proposing to bring the FBI here either, for example, as an alternative. Since it is the government which must have put up the $3 million reward, it must be presumed that they were the ones who decided that this was the preferred approach, possibly, one suspects, on grounds of cost since the Argentine team carried a price tag of around $7 million.
The government did, of course, bring members of the Regional Security System here more than a month ago to assist in the probe, and following their departure this newspaper had been told by sources that the team had found the GPF “well poised and competent” to complete the investigations. President Irfaan Ali had told the media that the RSS had recommended additional work be done. Exactly what that was no one outside government circles or the police really knows, any more than they know whether it has been undertaken or not. In other words, since the public is not privy to what stage police enquiries have reached, they can only draw inferences from what is in the public domain, such as the failure to establish any DNA links between evidence collected from the secondary crime scene and earlier suspects, and the offer of a $3 million reward.
In the meantime the GHRA has launched a fund-raising drive in order to pay to bring the team from Argentina here. In a statement the organisation made it clear that solving the crime would “contribute significantly to ethnic reconciliation in Guyana.” It went on to say, “Raising the necessary funds from multiple small, politically independent donations is an opportunity for many people to make common cause in resolving these murders.” It was important, it emphasised, that the civic character of the initiative be quarantined from any possible association with political influence of a partisan nature, and that it would welcome pledges from all individuals and non-partisan organisations.
The problem is that the GHRA wants the government to provide half the funding, but it has received no response to this, and from what Minister Benn has said, as indicated above, it appears it is not disposed to do so.
It may be, of course, that the police make progress with their present suspects, although how many of them are connected to the Henry boys’ enquiries and how many to Singh’s has not been disclosed. If they do, there should not be a problem with the GHRA appeal for funds, since what the organisation is recommending is that people initially do not give money, but pledge a given sum which later can be transferred. Their idea is that this would apply until the government has clarified its position, but presumably it could also be extended to see if anything emerges from the questioning of those currently held in custody.
If this avenue too turns out to be a cul-de-sac, then the government will come under great pressure to bring in the Argentinians, whatever it thinks of the GHRA with whom relations have not always been cosy. Apart from anything else, it would be greatly embarrassed if that organisation did succeed in raising substantial funds, since at the very least it would be forced to recognise that civil society was now operating effectively in an important sphere outside PPP/C control.
That aside, all right-thinking Guyanese want these murders solved, for the same reason as the human rights organisation has said. One has always assumed that the government did too. If that is so then they must be prepared to take the measures necessary and expend the funds required whenever that becomes appropriate.