Torture cop transferred to look after police dogs

July 22, 2015 | By KNews | Filed Under News, Source

With the bid to have him fired not finding favour with the Police Service Commission (PSC), the administration of the Guyana Police Force has banished one of its inspectors to its canine department.

Inspector Narine Lall was at the centre of the controversy surrounding the torture of a West Demerara teenager in 2009. In fact, he and Constable Mohanram Dolai were both charged for the offence, which stated that they poured methylated spirits on the young man’s genitals and set it on fire.

At the time the cops were investigating the murder of a senior Region Three official.

They were both acquitted when the main witnesses failed to turn up to give the evidence in court.

However, a civil court presided over by Justice Roxanne George had found them being responsible for the torture of the teenager and had awarded a judgement to the tune of $6M.

The policemen, who were interdicted from duty pending the outcome of their trial, were subsequently reinstated in the Force.

Last January, both men were promoted, Lall to Inspector and Dolai to Corporal prompting outcry from a section of the public.  Constable Dolai has since been fired by Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud on the instruction of Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan, who claimed that this move was being done in the public interest.

But since the Commissioner of Police did not have the authority to dismiss Inspector Dolai, the minister wrote to the Police Service Commission, recommending such course of action.

It’s been more than a month, since the Service Commission was written to and Lall still remains on the job.

According to a source, since the PSC has not heeded the request of the Minister, a decision was taken to remove Inspector Lall from his position in the Complaints Section in the Police C (East Coast) Division and send him to tend to the force’s canines.

Minister Ramjattan who was appointed in late May following the elections victory of the coalition A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC), has made it clear that all rogue cops must go since there is no place for them in the Guyana Police Force.

“There was a finding by a very Senior Judge, Justice George, in the High Court, that this was torture, and in my book that is criminal enough for them not to have been retained, much less to have been promoted. That happened under the PPP/C administration with Anil Nandlall being the Attorney General,” Ramjattan had told reporters.

“All rogue cops, especially when judicial officers would have pronounced on their wrongdoing, will go, and even those cops who have had serious allegations, if internally there are investigations, and we find them culpable, they are going to go too. I want the GPF to know that there will be zero tolerance for any harassment of any citizen of people’s rights, harassment to the extent of bullyism and even the grave one of burning people’s genitalia. They are all going to go and there will be criminal prosecutions,” the public security minister had added.

Last week Police Commissioner Persaud went a step further when he announced that Police ranks who are charged for serious offences will face immediate dismissal from the Force. Previously, ranks placed before the courts would be interdicted from duty and receive half their salary until the end of their legal matter, when they would draw down on the accumulated other half which sometimes amounts to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars.

They are in most cases reinstated and continue to work as police ranks.
But according to Commissioner Persaud those days are over.

“You are charged and go before the court for certain types of offences, corruption and some other types relating to excessive force and deliberate criminal activity….simultaneously with going to court, you are losing the job,” the Commissioner declared.

“So it’s not a half salary now and then cash in on the other half five, six years after…It’s that you immediately have to look for another job to pay your lawyers and everybody else,” he stressed.