THE Police, after more than one year, are still to make an arrest for the shooting of  former Commissioner of Insurance, Mrs. Maria van Beek.
She was shot and wounded by a lone gunman as she drove through busy traffic in Lombard Street, Georgetown, on April 17, 2009, but detectives have also not ascertained the motive for the crime.
Eyewitnesses had said the gunman attacked her near the junction with Leopold Street, stood in front on van Beek’s car, fired a bullet through the right side front window and calmly walked to where an accomplice helped him escape on a Honda ‘CG’ motorcycle.
Bleeding profusely, the injured woman managed to drive to Mohamed’s Enterprise on Lombard Street, where she sought assistance and was driven to Woodlands Hospital in Carmichael Street, also in the city, where she underwent emergency surgery to remove a gunshot that missed her heart.
Mrs. van Beek had been appointed Judicial Manager of the failed Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO), on February 28, 2008, before the incident but a senior Police officer said, on Monday, that they are still investigating it.
Speaking on a condition of anonymity, he said, although they had arrested two persons just after the attack, the suspects provided alibis and were not fingered on identification parades.
However, if new evidence surfaces, it would readily be investigated.
Meanwhile, van Beek is recovering well overseas and, probably, would not return to Guyana, unless the shooter is brought to justice.