IN January 2013, Mr. James Hyles, one of the accused charged with the murder of eleven persons, including five children, was indicted to stand trial at the April 2013 Criminal Assizes. Mr. Hyles, through his defence attorney, Mr. Nigel Hughes, who is also Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC) political party, has since filed a constitutional motion in the High Court seeking to have Mr. Hyles freed even before the  trial begins.

This newspaper was reliably informed that Hughes  recently  filed the motion to challenge the committal of Hyles, also known as ‘Sally’, who hails from Buxton, East Coast Demerara.
Hyles,  along with Mark Royden Williams called ‘Smallie’ of Uitvlugt and a 14-year-old boy of Strathspey Squatting Area, East Coast Demerara (ECD) were charged with murdering 11 persons when members of the “Fineman” led Buxton/Agricola gang descended  on the village of Lusignan. The gang, dubbed ‘Freedom Fighters’ by persons aligned to the political Opposition, committed the act after the disappearance of a female linked to its leader Rondell “Fineman” Rawlings.
The “Lusignan Massacre”, as those slayings have come to be known, is one of the darkest days in Guyana’s post-independence period. Eleven persons were brutally shot to death within minutes in the wee hours of January 26th 2008, when heavily-armed gunmen carrying AK-47s invaded the quiet East Coast Village of Lusignan which is predominantly populated by East Indians.
Among the dead were five children between the ages of 4 – 12 years. At least two of these children were killed in bed along with their mother hugging each other.
Murdered were Clarence Thomas, 48, along with two of his four children, Vanessa Thomas, 12 and Ron Thomas 11. His other two sons were also critically wounded but survived. In fact,  it was reported that the mother of these children actually witnessed the shooting of her two children and husband at point blank range.
Also brutally murdered were Mohandai Goodrat, 32 and her two children Seegopaul Harilal, 10 and Seegobin Harilal, 4. They were all killed hugging each other in bed.  The others were Danrajie Ramsingh, 52; Seecharran Rooplall, 56; Raywattie Singh, 11; Shazam Mohjamed, 22; and Saleem Baksh, 52.