Mafiosi in Guyana

Publisher of the Kaieteur News, Mr. Mohan Lall, also known as Glenn Lall, has admitted that conversations on the phones he gives to his employees are recorded, be it private conversations or related to the business of the local daily.

The admission of an illegal recording, made without the consent of one of the persons involved, has dire implications, because reporters often have ‘off-the-record’ conversations with public figures, as has happened in this instance, and such conversations are literally that – off the record (pun unintended), which is to say that the conversation should not be revealed in part or whole.
This sort of conversation is held where there is implicit trust, and many journalists have gone to jail rather than breach that trust; or a trust where they obtain information but refuse to name the source, because a reporter’s information-gathering often breaches many barriers, some of them with dire implications for innocent persons, or high-profile personalities, or even the ordinary man-in-the-street.
This media mogul has been charged with tax fraud and threatening public officials and from the inception has been looking for public sympathy, so his bogus fears and crocodile tears to generate public support in efforts to escape the very real threat of jail time, like a paedophile who has done the same, is merely grandstanding – a sham in a major way.
Guyana may be the only country where criminals are made into heroes. Lall escaped being legally penalised for the theft of millions of dollars worth of electricity, used to produce the same newspaper by the same persons who daily trumpet anti-corruption slogans and attack all and sundry as being corrupt, most often without a shred of evidence, or with fabricated ‘proof’; then, when their lies and/or misrepresentation of facts are exposed, the most they do to escape legal sanction is publish a barely-discernible apology for an erroneous report that was blazoned in that newspaper’s headlines.
Ironically, Glenn Lall had threatened Anil Nandlall then with dire consequences if he had been prosecuted for electricity theft – a crime that carries jail time, even though Nandlall had no jurisdiction over GPL’s affairs. The only link was that a relative of Nandlall’s was an official at the power company.

Concerns were being raised only last week over Lall’s illegal surveillance of the phone calls and other communications of his staff, Government officials, as well as private Guyanese citizens.
If this is proven to be true then Lall has committed several illegalities; and questions are being asked as to how Lall came into possession of the recording, if indeed it was recorded by the reporter – a possibility that constitutes a legal infraction.
Questions are also being asked under what circumstances the telephone conversation was recorded, if it was a recording or a result of wiretapping activities – another legal infraction.

The Kaieteur News publisher seems to think that he is untouchable because he is unconcernedly adding to his many legal transgressions with impunity and is calling for support from the public to generate sympathy, using his newspaper for self-glorification. That the joint Opposition is providing that support is expected, given that Lall once admitted during a corruption debate on national television that he publishes the information they provide without verification of facts.
This is an age where almost anything is possible with technology; and it seems hardly likely that someone as versed in legal dynamics and as brilliant and sagacious as the Attorney-General would open himself to such charges by conducting such a conversation as purported by Lall through a suspect medium; so it is more than likely that the recording was doctored to provide Glenn Lall with a red herring that would take the focus off the criminal charges that he is facing.
Reporters are private citizens, with the right to discuss and consider job offers without sanction by their employers. It speaks to Glenn Lall’s character that he would clandestinely record and listen to private conversations between his employees and anyone else – maybe even spouses.
The story of Troy is well-documented; and for reporters at Kaieteur News, instead of kindness the largesse they receive may very well be the proverbial horse from the legendary Greeks.
If the reporter did not provide his employer with the recording he made then the question remains as to how it was procured for publication (even a manipulated version) by Editor-in-Chief Adam Harris and publisher Glenn Lall; so was the recording obtained by wiretapping and then doctored to produce the desired result? If such is the case then no amount of public sympathy should prevent sanctions being levied, because even U.S. Presidents have been toppled for wire fraud and wire tapping. A clever technician should be able to determine the junctures that were infused into the conversation between the Attorney-General and the Kaieteur News official and then the perpetrators should be charged.
This is a man accused of shooting in cold blood, whether by accident or not, the father of someone he alleged robbed him; and this is a man whose employees were targeted for execution by criminal elements and whose business premises were suspected to have been deliberately set aflame – and questions are being asked about these inexplicable incidences until now. Many a Mafia boss has established untouchable echelons of power through manipulating enabling mechanisms in other countries. Could Guyana afford the same?

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