Home Affairs explains situation with Lindo Creek victims  
– says local law enforcement agency still investigating murder of miners
THE Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA), responding to Kaieteur News, Tuesday January 17 article, captioned ‘Payment for Lindo Creek remains described as flawed financial oversight’, said the local law enforcement agency is still investigating the murder of the miners.
Following a report about the deaths of Cecil Arokium and seven other miners, which occurred between June 12 and 24, 2008 at Arokium Mining Camp, Lindo Creek, Upper Berbice River, the Guyana Police Force (GPF), honouring its obligation, commenced an investigation.
The ministry said evidence found at the crime scene suggested that persons in it and the camp were burnt, to the extent that none of them were identifiable. Suspected human remains, inclusive of feet, bones and skulls, among other body parts were recovered.
Assistance in processing the crime scene was provided by members of the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago and Major Investigation Task Force of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the ministry said.
It said the investigators advised that the identification of the murdered victims could only have been done by way of DNA analysis and, as a result, samples of the human remains taken from the crime scene were transported by the Jamaican Team (which included a forensic pathologist) to the Jamaican Forensic Laboratory for analysis, while, the remainder was stored at Lyken’s Funeral Parlour in Georgetown.
The ministry said the Jamaican Constabulary Force submitted a report of a partial analysis that was conducted and promised to submit the full findings by the end of January 2012.
According to the ministry, the remains at Lyken’s Funeral Parlour form a vital part of the evidence collected and, although it is usual for that of persons killed in murders to be disposed of after  post mortem examinations, by handing over their bodies to relatives, in the Lindo Creek case, which is exceptional, the victims were not identified and, therefore, could not have been handed over to anyone nor disposed of by the State, due to emotional issues normally associated with their relatives.
The ministry said, the result is that, apart from the samples taken to Jamaica, the remains are still at Lyken’s at the expense of the State.

CONTROVERSY
It added that, because of the controversy surrounding the Lindo Creek incident, the GPF, sought to exercise caution in the storage of the victims’ remains and there was no viable option available at the time to facilitate storage of the remains, neither did the GPF anticipate that it would have taken a long period of time to obtain the DNA results.
The ministry maintained that none of the financial regulations was breached and the expenditure was charged to the correct Line Item –‘6294 -Other’ in the current allocation of the GPF.
This Line item caters for payment of expenses relative to cases of unnatural death where the GPF has to intervene, which, invariably, leads to situations where it has to engage the services of funeral parlours for the transportation and storing of dead bodies prior to the disposal, by way of burial by relatives of the deceased or the State, the ministry explained.
The ministry said it wishes to reiterate that, at all times, appropriate efforts are made to ensure that monies allocated to it and its departments are expended in such a manner that value is received for such expenditure.
Those presumed to have been murdered in the Lindo Creek mass killings are Bonny Harry, Dax Arokium, Cecil Arokium, Clifton Wong, Nigel Torres, Compton Speirs, Horace Drakes and Lancelot Lee.