Nigel Hughes

Attorney Nigel Hughes has rubbished the government's holding company NICIL’s $200M compensation claim for the Linmine Secretariat which was destroyed by fire at Linden on July 18, saying it has failed to prove it owned the complex.

The Secretariat was destroyed in the unrest which erupted after three protesters were killed allegedly by the police who engaged a crowd blocking a key bridge. NICIL’s Executive Director Winston Brassington on Monday submitted a claim for $204M.

At a media brieifing on Wednesday the AFC Chairman and attorney for the dead men’s families stated that when Brassington had testified before the Commission in October he failed to provide documentation to show that the property was in NICIL’s name or even in the name of Linmine.

“It was clear then that he could not have established any ownership of the land or the structures on the land in the name of Linmine nor NICIL. Unless

Winston Brassington

something has happened dramatically, which would be most unusual and certainly most irregular, between the last time he testified and now, if they couldn’t establish ownership then and they acquired it since they clearly would not have suffered a loss because that acquisition would have come after the incidents in July,” Hughes said.

According to him, he believes that Brassington’s failure to establish ownership would act as a stumbling block to his claim.

The Linmine assets were transferred to NICIL in 2004 and under cross examination last October Brassington had said that that included most of the immovable property but he acknowledged that the Secretariat had not been explicitly listed.

The vesting order transferring the assets states “The assets of Linmine shall, as of the appointed date, be transferred to and vested in NICIL. The assets are the immovable property which was owned by Linmine immediately before the appointed date. All property of Linmine, in the town of Linden, in the country of Demerara, Guyana, owned by Linmine immediately before the appointed date, which includes all lands and buildings used by Linmine and must not be vested to any other person.”