– Lawyer signals intention to question police on child’s whereabouts
SENIOR Counsel Bernard De Santos has declared his intention to write the Guyana Police Force for information, relative, to how a child in their custody was able to leave the jurisdiction for Canada via the back track route. The child at reference is 16-month-old Ethan Jaichand Latchman, a Canadian citizen whose Guyanese mother had been deported from Canada for illegal entry. She died at the Georgetown Hospital recently whilst being an in-patient.
Following his mother’s death, her sisters had custody of Ethan Jaichand Latchman, but custody was challenged by a relative of the child’s Guyanese father now living in Canada. The child’s father had allegedly also gone to Canada by the back track route with the child’s mother, who had then been girlfriend.
Ethan’s parents had gotten him while they were in Canada, but they later separated, and, according to reports, his father got married to a Canadian in order to legalise his status with Canadian Immigration authorities.
Ethan’s mother had been caught and deported to Guyana along with her child. She later took sick and died at the Georgetown Hospital.
It has been learnt that Ethan’s father’s relative, a step grandfather, armed himself with birth certificate and other documents for Ethan, which he produced to ranks at the Leonora Police Station in order to get custody of the child.
A sister of Ethan’s mother who had custody of the child was reportedly instructed by the Leonora Police to hand over Ethan to the relative who was armed with what appeared to be legal documents.

Following that development, Deowattie Sookdeo, another maternal aunt of the infant, applied for a writ of habeas corpus, compelling the police to produce the body of the child in court. Senior Counsel Mr. Bernard De Santos is the legal counsel for this applicant.
During the hearing of the writ, on a day when the relative and the child were expected to be produced in court before Justice Brassington Reynolds, instead of producing the human exhibits, an officer of the Leonora Police Station produced copies of documents supporting the view that the child was taken out of the jurisdiction into Suriname via Moleson Creek.
Consequently, Senior Counsel Bernard De Santos has signalled his intention to question the police, by way of a letter, on exactly how the infant had been able to leave this jurisdiction.