Charges against three men on Friday for the murders of the Henry cousins, Joel and Isaiah mark an important milestone in the investigation into the heinous crime while at the same time underlining pervasive and longstanding weaknesses in the work of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
It will not go unnoticed that it took the police force more than four months to arrive at the point at which it felt confident to bring charges against the trio: Vinod Gopaul, 30, of Yakusari North, Black Bush Polder, Corentyne, Berbice; Anil Sancharra, 34, of D’Edward Village, West Coast Berbice and his stepbrother, Akash Singh,’ 20, of Zeelugt Squatting Area, East Bank Essequibo.
There must be accountability for these killings and at the end of the process, the aggrieved public must feel convinced that justice has been done.
Thus far it appears that the lynchpin of the police’s case is an alleged confession by the youngest of the trio. Confession statements are notoriously weak elements of cases of this type and particularly in the context of the history of the GPF where for a long time it had faced accusations of the eliciting of such under grave duress and brutality. It will now be for the court to make its judgment on the evidence before it.
In mitigation, the police can reasonably point to the unrest that erupted on the West Berbice following the discovery of the mutilated bodies of the boys in the backdam of Cotton Tree on September 6th, as hampering their investigation. Seized with understandable rage at the killings, residents of the area mounted protests which rapidly escalated and were then exploited by those who were still chafing at their defeat at the end of the elections crisis on August 2nd last year. There were also irresponsible attempts to incite racial animosity over the murders.
Police could have been prevented from immediately accessing and processing what appeared to the secondary site of the killings and thereafter determining whether there was another site of interest and to locate this. However, the days of reliance on confession statements are long gone and as far back as two decades ago forensic evidence has been the benchmark for investigations of this type.
Whether the crime scene was tampered with or not there was undoubtedly a minefield of forensic evidence to retrieve and in particular DNA samples. DNA samples were retrieved after a lengthy search of the secondary site by the police and there will be questions about these and whether or not they are viable for further testing. Unfortunately as important as such testing was at the time, our own Guyana Forensic Laboratory, which had only in 2019 begun doing DNA assays was unable to discharge its functions in this regard since a result was required rapidly. The police sought recourse to a lab in St Lucia which still took quite some time before returning the results. These samples tested against the suspects who had initially been held proved negative. Were DNA samples taken from the three murder accused?
Given the macabre string of events surrounding the murders there would be rich forensic evidence available to investigators ranging from weapons used in the killings, the clothing of the deceased, the trail between the primary site and the still to be discovered secondary site, the means of transport from one site to the other etc.
Given all of this, the utilisation of the lab in St Lucia, the participation of a team from the Regional Security System/Caribbean Community Implementation Agency for Crime and Security and the offer of help from a highly-regarded Argentine forensic probe team it is disappointing that the investigation has meandered as long as it has and that thus far a confession statement is being held up as the primary evidence.
There remains now the question of the equally horrific murder of Haresh Singh on September 10 last year seemingly in reprisal for the killing of the Henry cousins. His family is also entitled to justice but more than four months on no one has been charged with his murder. Again, it is a question of gathering the evidence, forensic and all other types. Thus far the GPF has not been able to deliver.
These three killings – there are others – raise serious questions about whether the GPF has been able to magisterially develop forensic evidence to satisfy the high bar usually required by the law courts and the court of public opinion.
