Phone records reveal…Hicken lied
Linden inquiry…
- spoke 6 times on phone with Rohee on the day of shooting
Telephone records showing that contact was made at least six times between Senior Superintendent of Police Clifton Hicken and Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee following the July 18th shootings in Linden were yesterday produced as evidence before the Commission of Inquiry.
The information contradicts Hicken’s earlier testimony that during the unrest in Linden, he had no telephone contacts with the Home Affairs Minister before or immediately after the shooting that left three Lindeners dead and several others injured.
Senior Superintendent of Police, Clifton Hicken
Attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes presented the documents to the Commissioners with assistance of representatives from both Digicel and the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T), the two main telephone companies in the country, explaining the recording process of calling data. The officials were summoned to give evidence.
Gregory Dean, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Digicel Guyana, was the first on the stand. While being led by Hughes in his evidence-in- chief, Dean said that all telephone transactions are done at the company’s switch site and when the transaction is complete, the information is transferred to the company’s data warehouse.
Dean provided information on calls made to and from cell number 661-9490, which is said to be the mobile number of Senior Superintendent of Police, Clifton Hicken. The CEO also said that the individual who used the GT&T number to call the Digicel subscriber was not identifiable.
Edgar Blackman was next on the stand representing GT&T as the security manager.
Blackman said telephone numbers 622-6592, 623-9980, 225-3073 and 225-7270 were provided as a result of a witness summons sent to his work place. He said copies were made of extracts pertaining to calls originating from the said numbers.
The number 623-9980, according to the GT&T document, belonged to Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee. It was then shown, based on the document, that calls from 623-9980 were made to 661-9490, the mobile number of Hicken.
When asked, Blackman said one call’s duration was six minutes, five seconds; another lasted three minutes, 11 seconds; and on another page reading “local number”, the cell phone number 661-9490, purporting to be that of senior officer Hicken, called 623-9980 (said to be Rohee’s number) for a duration of three minutes.
Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee
Blackman later agreed with Hughes when he said based on the recording documents, calls between Hicken and Rohee were made at least six times.
In Hughes’ questioning, it was shown via the documents that calls were made to and from landline and cellular phone numbers. Within these numbers there were also calls to and from unknown numbers. The identification of those numbers was requested and the official was ordered by the Commission to make the information available.
Attorney for the police, Hukumchand then cross-examined Blackman. The GT&T representative confirmed that a number could be registered to a subscriber, but the caller and the content of the call could not be identified. The GT&T representative also confirmed that between 17:00hours and 20:00 hours no calls were made between the Home Affairs Minister and Senior Superintendent Hicken.
The telephone calls are significant as the Minister had insisted he played no part in ordering the shooting of the Linden protestors who were on the streets objecting to hikes in electricity rates for that Region 10 area.
The protests had lasted for a month and saw a deal being hammered out between leaders of Linden and government for a postponement of the hike and the establishment of the Commission of Inquiry into the shootings.
Several local and international legal experts are part of the Commission. Several top police officials including the Commissioner (ag) Leroy Brumell have been called to testify.