March 1, 2016  Source

No evidence to offer for probe of senior cop

- PPP officials tell investigators

After calling for a probe of a senior detective over alleged corrupt activities and criminal ties, PPP Executive Secretary Zulfikar Mustapha and General Secretary Clement Rohee yesterday told police that they had no evidence to offer.

It was as a result of a statement issued on Saturday night that police officers attached to the Office of Professional Responsibility, visited Freedom House yesterday to interview the officials.

However, a police statement yesterday said that both Mustapha, who was met personally, and Rohee, who engaged the police ranks through his secretary, indicated that they had “nothing of evidential value to offer.”

It was noted that initially when the issue first arose through a broadcast on HGPTV Channel 67, reporter Travis Chase had also stated that he had nothing of evidential value to offer when approached by the police.

The PPP, in its statement, had called for an immediate investigation to be launched into the conduct of the senior police detective, while claiming that it was aware that there were audio and video recordings of him engaged in unprofessional conduct.

The party, in a brief statement signed by Mustapha, named the rank but gave no indication that it had made any attempts to raise the issue with Police Commissioner Seelall Persaud, any other senior police officers or Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan.

The rank is heading a high-profile murder investigation for which PPP members were recently arrested and questioned.

The statement said that the party was very concerned about the “known egregious and extra-curricular conduct” of the rank.

“We call upon the Commissioner of Police, Mr Seelall Persaud, to immediately initiate an investigation into the many allegations surfacing about [name of rank] including his misuse of office; allegations of political persecutions; and allegations regarding his links to the criminal underworld and the use of that link to implicate innocent persons,” it stated.

“The PPP is concerned that unless this matter is nipped in the bud, more and more officers of the force will become infected and the contamination will eventually spread right across the force,” the statement added.

In an invited comment yesterday, Persaud said he was aware of the PPP press release and opined that that its contents are related to the television broadcast from a few weeks ago.

He said the police had launched an investigation immediately after the broadcast aired but the reporter who came to police in the company of his lawyer “refused to give any information that can be helpful to the investigation and the investigation basically stuck there unless we can get something that we can work with, some lead or something.” He informed that with this particular case, the force is considering “other options, other possibilities against reckless statements.

“What we do whenever there are complaints about unprofessional behaviour, we try to investigate to find out whether it is so and if it is so then we take appropriate action. If it’s not so, depends on how long that investigation takes to complete, if it’s closed then we issue statements,” he added.

I noticed the Guyana Times add a little twist to their piece of writing.