-DPP justifies using police to prosecute Carvil Duncan

AMIDST swirling criticisms over its handling of two high-profile criminal cases, the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has sought to justify using policemen to prosecute the fraud case against Carvil Duncan.

This agency, headed by Mrs. Shalimar-Ali-Hack, has come under intense scrutiny for its handling of the Duncan case, as well as its decision to assign prosecutors to the Jennifer Westford and Margaret Cummings’ fraud matters more than one year after the case had started.

In a statement issued on Monday, in response to an article carried in this newspaper under the caption “DPP Chambers under scrutiny”, the agency said: “…regarding the Carvil Duncan matter, the DPP wishes to re-emphasise that this matter was always handled by the Chambers. Police Prosecutors who are assigned to these Chambers prosecute all matters in the Magistrates’ Courts. This is the present system, and they handle all matters in Magistrates’ Courts.”

However, the agency has contradicted its own position, since it has state prosecutors dealing with a number of cases in the magistrates’ courts.

The DPP statement argued that Police Prosecutor Vishnu Hunt was assigned to appear for the prosecution in these matters, but “when there seemed to be some difficulties, Senior State Counsel was appointed by the DPP to take over from the DPP’s Police Prosecutor.”

The chamber added that there are 24 charges against each defendant in the Jennifer Westford case. This makes a total of 48 charges being heard together. It said police investigations were completed on January 22, 2016; charges were instituted on February 01, 2O16, the DPP’s Police Prosecutor commenced prosecution, and this was taken over by the State Counsel.

Political activist and Executive member of the Working People’s Alliance, Tacuma Ogunseye, in a letter appearing in the Stabroek News last week, stated that the Duncan case raises a lot of questions. Ogunseye said the dismissal of the case on ground of insufficient evidence calls into question the seriousness of the State in bringing to justice alleged wrongdoers of the former regime.

He asked why a senior counsel was not assigned to prosecute the case, and contended that the police prosecutor would not have been competently capable of prosecuting the case against the country’s leading lawyers.

He said, “Reading the magistrate’s legal justification for throwing out the case, the poorly prepared case of the prosecution was highlighted. Some of the shortcomings are elementary matters; for example, the presentation of photocopied documents without any attempt being made to prove that an original existed and that the copy was a true representation of the original.”

He said the prosecution also led no circumstantial evidence in relation to the bank statement showing that a sum had been debited from GPL’s account, so the court could only admit that it existed, not the truth of it.

Duncan, a former Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Board member, was freed of a larceny charge last week. He was before the courts on an alleged theft of $1M from the power company. A lack of proper prosecution was cited as a key element in Duncan’s acquittal, and the presiding magistrate criticised the work of the police prosecutor, deeming it sloppy.

Magistrate Leron Daly, after upholding a no-case submission by Duncan’s former attorney, Charles Ramson Jr, and present Attorney Glenn Hanoman, ruled that there was not sufficient evidence to convict Duncan of the offence.

Duncan, however, still faces a conspiracy to steal charge, and was instructed to return to court on January 4, 2017 in relation to a charge in which he is accused of conspiring with another to steal $27,757,547 from the GPL between May 7 and 8, 2015.

It was reported that Duncan and a former senior GPL official, Aeshwar Deonarine, were part of a multi-million-dollar fraud at GPL. The men are alleged to have illegally transferred close to $28M from GPL to their personal bank accounts.

Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Basil Williams, on Thursday told this newspaper that Government was forced into hiring special prosecutors for the Pradoville 2 and the Guyana Cricket World Cup Inc. scams owing to the fact that state prosecutors had expressed discomfort in standing in those cases.

“We were forced into that position because the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had indicated that the members of her department had some discomfort in having to prosecute the case of a former minister (Jennifer Westford), and as a result of that… If the State’s prosecution department is saying that they don’t wish to prosecute these types of matters that are political, what was the State supposed to do; fiddle with its hands?” Williams asked.