Ramjattan responds to opposition’s criticisms regarding functions of SOCU

Public Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan has clarified that the amended Standard Operating Procedures for the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU) does not entail the unit investigating minor robberies or petty crimes.

The minister questioned, “but if there is an anti-terrorist crime that leads to murder, are you telling me that this unit would deal with the anti-money laundering and when it comes to the murder send it back to the homicide squad?”

He said SOCU would proceed to do all of these investigations since they are all related.

Responding to criticisms by the opposition Ramjattan said, “I thought it was rather ludicrous that here it is a person who was criticizing what we did  by setting up the scandal on written procedures and quarreling with it when they set up a SOCU and never had any standard operating procedures.”

The Public Security minister said this is not what SOCU is about, clarifying that when the unit gets information from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) about suspicious bank transactions and other crimes it would then proceed to do its follow-up investigations.

Ramjattan said his preference is for SOCU to come under the Guyana Police Force, however, this would be determined following debates in the National Assembly.