Andriff Gillard, the man who said he was offered $7M by Nizam Khan, a businessman of Diamond, East Bank Demerara (EBD) to kill President David Granger, has said he relied solely on his memory to report the matter to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Gillard, who appeared for the second time before the Paul Slowe-led Commission of Inquiry (CoI) while being questioned by attorney representing the interest of Imran Khan, the brother of accused Nizam Khan, said he was not in a position to document his version of the allegation.
The 32-year old man said he recalled making two statements on the alleged plot to assassinate President David Granger back in 2015 and as far as he knows, the statements were accurate. He accepted that his report on March 29 was done some 21 months after the alleged offer.
“You said your statements were accurate in every respect, so you’d say that you have an excellent memory?” asked Christopher Ram, attorney representing Imran Khan. “I would not exaggerate,” replied Gillard to whom Ram suggested he has a flawed memory. “Do you have any problems with your memory… did you make any contemporaneous notes at the time of this so called allegation about a plot to assassinate President Granger?” Ram followed up.

Gillard, who is a practicing Muslim but swore by the Bible, told the Commission that between June 2015 and March 2017, “No, I didn’t, I had no facilities to do that.” It was in June 2015 that Gillard said Nizam Khan offered him $7M to kill the president. He said since then, he never made any effort to document the information.
The man said he was relying solely on his memory and “scenario situations”. The Diamond, EBD resident, recalled borrowing money from Nizam Khan on several occasions and said while he can’t state each time he borrowed money from Khan, he would borrow the money to “keep promotions” or go into the interior to purchase gold to re-sell. It was at that point he disclosed that he is a dredge owner.
He assured that “I never borrowed money from Nizam Khan without repaying.” Gillard’s account contradicted entirely from that of Khan who told the Commission that Gillard owes him some $1.3M.

Ram asked, “Why weren’t you paying these debts that you have outstanding, including your rental money?” a question which clearly did not find favour with Gillard who responded, “Have I ever owed you?” His response was immediately chided by the Commission’s head. “Answer the question the lawyer asked you, don’t get argumentative… that is uncalled for,” said Slowe.
Ram said Gillard’s behaviour represents contempt of the Commission and refused to tolerate such behaviour. He nevertheless proceeded with his line of questioning. “My question to you is, if you had your $6M why were you unable to meet your obligations?”
It was then that Gillard asked Ram to specify what he is talking about. “Well, your rental amount to $300,000… the unpaid balance from the loan.” “Sir that is all suggestions by you,” the man responded sharply.

Criminal records
Meanwhile, Gillard was asked about his police record before March 2017 and despite Ram putting records to him, the man repeatedly denied. He said he is not aware of being charged with an offence concerning dishonesty. “Robbing people is a dishonest act?” asked the attorney to whom Gillard responded in the affirmative. “Were you charged for robbery?” Ram continued, to which Gillard replied, “Not that I know of.”
It was then the attorney said, Gillard was charged in July 2009 with robbery under arms, but the man still denied stating that he was just “the driver of the vehicle.” The issues of larceny of sheep in West Coast Berbice, the wounding of several persons, assault among others were put to the witness who in most instances said he could not recall. He said in one case he was wounded by someone and the matter was placed before the court.
“Can you recall the events of April 13, 2017 at the Timehri Police Station?” asked Ram who indicated that Gillard had assaulted his wife. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” replied Gillard who said he has no specific place of worship. “Do you normally go to Diamond Masjid?” Ram asked as he continued his line of questioning. “So you consider yourself pretty strict with the faith?” Gillard replied, “Yes”.
He told the Commission that he and his wife visited the President of the Diamond Masjid and asked him to get Nizam and Imran Khan to speak with them. However, Ram suggested different. According to the attorney, Gillard wanted the duo together to apologise to them.
“I did ask for an interview with them because of the threats…to ask them to stop it because I was very fearful for my life…he told me he would organize a meeting, but after he told me the Khan’s deny meeting with me.” The man dismissed three quarter of the allegations as “propaganda” and stated that the police stationed at the Diamond-Grove Police Station arrested him for “nothing” on a number of occasions.

Facebook post
That aside, Ram presented evidence to the Commission that Gillard had posted on his Facebook page a photo of a long black gun. The image was posted on August 5, 2017 and was captioned, “Nizam Khan got #busted”. Gillard in response said the photograph was downloaded from Google and uploaded to his social media page. “What impression did you want to give?” asked Ram, to which Gillard said he wanted to show that Nizam was busted for having the long black gun which he wanted to be used to kill President Granger. But Ram suggested that Gillard wanted to corroborate his story, but that statement did not rest well with Gillard.
“How would I know Khan has a gun just like this, if I had not seen it from him? This is a picture to show the type of gun shown to me because I cannot explain myself in names and details of it…I got a picture to show that this is the exact looking gun to the one Nizam had given to me,” said Gillard.
But Ram maintained that Gillard was lying before the commission and said he got the photograph from nationalguntraders.com. “I got it from Google,” maintained Gillard. Ram said too that the photograph was taken down on February 20, 2013 at 12:55pm. “This is not a contemporaneous thing sir, said Ram who continued, “Commissioner, this man is the plotter in this whole exercise. What one needs to do, to fabricate something is have some intelligence.”
Attorneys Ian Chang and James Bond, representing the Police Force and the Commission respectively, along with Commissioner Slowe also cross-examined Gillard on Friday.