THERE was no closure of the Guyana Defence Force’s (GDF) Military Criminal Intelligence Department (MCID or G2), according to former president Dr Bharrat Jagdeo. Rather, the Department was subject to “significant” structural changes.Earlier this week, Lieutenant Colonel (retired) George Gomes, in a letter to the press, charged that Jagdeo, then Commander-in-Chief, had closed the Department.

“The aim of this department was not only to go after the known criminal elements, but also to pursue the architects of the crime wave. Jagdeo ordered the closure of the MCID, thus bringing to an end the process that would have ended the criminal activities.
“Jagdeo’s major fear was that this department, apart from exposing the criminal architects, may have also led to the arrest of senior Government functionaries,” Gomes had said.

However, Dr Jagdeo stressed that this assertion is not factual.
“We had changes. The G-2 still operated, but you had significant changes in G-2,” he said.

He explained that the changes made in G2 were based on the fact that, as the then president, reports reaching him in relation to the investigations in the crime wave of the 2000s were “sterilized” by different ranks in the chain of command before they were handed to him.

“I remember one Colonel came to me and said to me ‘the report you’re getting from the Military Intelligence has to go through one character, and it gets sterilized before it comes to you’, and he shared with me the initial report, the one that was drafted by the soldiers who were actually going out,” Dr Jagdeo said.

According to Dr Jagdeo, “key things” were removed from the report, particularly in relation to the identification of politicians aligned with the Opposition. Those things would have raised questions about their involvement.

Dr Jagdeo also rejected the assertion that the Department was closed because information of a possible connection between known drug lord Roger Khan and the then Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy had come to light.

“I never turned a blind eye to anything, because we went after all the criminals in the country,” Jagdeo declared.

The former president has deferred questions on the matter to Dr Roger Luncheon, Secretary to the Defence Board and Head of the Presidential Secretariat.