AFTER being granted bail on a charge of burning down the Ministry of Health building seven years ago, Keith “General” Ferrier was yesterday brought before the court after fleeing the jurisdiction in 2009.Ferrier appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan after he was apprehended last Monday when he returned from neighboring Venezuela where he had been hiding for the past several years.
Ferrier was one of the men who were released on $350,000 bail for the arson of the Ministry of Health, Brickdam on July 17, 2009. However after posting bail the accused fled the jurisdiction.
Unrepresented at Thursday’s arraignment, Ferrier said that he feared for his life and hid because he had received death threats. Ferrier also said that he had made contact with his lawyer stating that he had contracted malaria and was unable to make his court appearance.
However, the Chief Magistrate indicated to him that the charge was since 2009 and it was almost seven years that he had failed to make his court appearance after being granted bail. The magistrate then remanded Ferrier until April 4 for report and fixtures.
In 2013, Colin Jones and his co-conspirator, Clayton Westford, were both sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment after being found guilty of deliberately setting the fire that destroyed the Ministry. Ferrier was believed to have been the mastermind of the attack.
The building was said to be more than one hundred years old and had been the original Queen’s College (QC), which was taken over by the Government to be the Ministry of Health in the 1950s.
The estimated value of the burnt complex was between $1.2 and $1.3 billion and some of the lost records were related to human resources and others about people working at hospitals, professional examinations, the Guyana Nursing, Medical and Pharmacy Councils. Financial and administrative files would also have been amongst the losses.