November 17 ,2020
The main parliamentary opposition, APNU+AFC is asking the National Assembly to direct the Government to procure and finance the assistance of expert and competent professionals who can close the investigation into the deaths of Joel Henry, Isaiah Henry and Haresh Singh.
In a motion lodged by Shadow Minister of Home Affairs, Geeta Chandan-Edmond, the party notes that two months after the early September murders they remain unsolved.
“To date these horrific deaths which are of public importance, concern and welfare remain substantially under investigated and unresolved and have been rendered inconclusive by the Guyana Police Force,” the motion contends adding that the GPF did not collect all evidence that was available.
It stresses that the Guyana Police Force continues to perform in a manner which is manifestly incompetent and has brought the Administration into ridicule, and disrepute and calls on the National Assembly to condemn the killings, extend condolences to the families of the deceased and express concern about the state of the Police investigations into these murders.
The Assembly is specifically asked to note “the incompetence manifested by the Guyana Police Force and the clear indication that they lack the requisite skills to solve these heinous crimes.”
The “manifested…lack of requisite skills” presumably necessitates the procurement and financing of the expert assistance requested.
The final request of the motion is that the Assembly calls upon the Force to expedite the investigations accept and to cooperate fully with the international professionals with the aim of solving these crimes. fully and bringing to justice the perpetrators of these gruesome and barbaric murders.
Though the motion does not name the experts whose presence the government is expected to procure and finance, it is clearly intended to bolster efforts to have the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Argentino de Anthropologio Forensica – EAAF).
The presence of the team was first proposed by the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) on September 10.
In a press statement the GHRA had said that the primary purpose of the invitation is to provide the families and the society with a trustworthy version of the events surrounding the murders.
“Without an impartial version of the truth, acceptable to all right-minded Guyanese, these events will inevitably join the catalogue of unresolved atrocities embedded in Guyanese ethnic folklore. Such events are never allowed to be conclusively buried. They survive in a mythical realm leaving the listener unsure whether the event had occurred in the 1960s, 1997, 2003 and so on,” the GHRA indicated.
The request for assistance has received a positive response from EAAF which has offered to send a team to Guyana including a forensic pathologist, a forensic anthropologist and a forensic radiologist.
Last Monday, Minister of Home Affairs Robeson Benn appeared to rule out any role for the Argentine investigators. He told reporters on Monday that the Government does not intend to go beyond its “normal lines” of engagement in trying to solve the murders. Benn said in cases of this nature, it’s a norm for authorities to engage overseas agencies from the United States, United Kingdom and Canada.
GHRA in turn has launched a fund-raising drive to cover the nearly $7 million cost of bringing the team to Guyana. As of Friday pledges of $1.2m have already been received.
