All officers who feel aggrieved by the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the alleged plot to kill the Head of State are being urged to take legal action against the findings of the report and to question the true motive of the inquiry.
The encouragement comes from General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Bharrat Jagdeo who, during a news conference on Tuesday, condemned the articles published in the State media on the COI findings and questioned the real reason this confidential report was leaked only to the Guyana Chronicle even though it is yet to reach Cabinet.
“They should go to the courts and block all of this; question the COI and its motive. If there is any attempt to use the COI, not a careful report that is done about police reform, but this COI to affect the careers of these officers…if we sit quietly and allow this to happen, professionalism in the police force will be destroyed,” Jagdeo posited.
Jagdeo reiterated that the COI was used to tarnish the reputations of senior cops in an effort for the government to install preferred individuals in the hierarchy of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
He argued that the findings and recommendations can never be partial given that Chairman of the COI, retired Assistant Police Commissioner, Paul Slowe was a part of the APNU elections campaign in 2015.
“Paul Slowe is acting on the basis of a vendetta. We believe if the resident was serious about such an investigation, he should not have appointed Paul Slowe to head it because Paul Slowe has bad blood with many people in there… he was a member of the APNU campaign team in the last elections, he was put there to do a hatchet job on the leadership of the Police Force,” he argued.
So far, the State media has reported that the COI recommended the replacement of Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum and his Deputy, that the Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud be sent home, Deputy Top Cop David Ramnarine be sanctioned and the Assistant Police Commissioner Clifton Hicken be disciplined for failure to properly investigate the allegation of a plot to kill the President, David Granger.
