…President orders CoI into plan to assassinate him

PRESIDENT David Granger has ordered a Commission of Inquiry (COI) into an alleged plot to assassinate him.
Well-placed sources told this newspaper that the Commission could be sworn in this week.
It is unclear what the Terms of Reference (TOR) are for the COI, but the Guyana Chronicle was told that it would address among other things the police’s investigation of the case.
In April, an investigation was launched by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the police legal advisor into an alleged plot to shoot President Granger while he was on one of his outreaches.

Minister of State, Joseph Harmon, had disclosed that the administration had been provided with some information by the police about an ongoing investigation of this nature.
Harmon noted that the security of the president has been increased and made it clear that while the president was popular there were some “misguided people”, and as such extra measures had to be put in place.
Thus far, specifics of the investigation have not been revealed by the administration but Harmon had said: “I have the full confidence of the ability of the security forces to protect our President and the Ministers of Government who have been elected by the people to run the Government.

The Minister of State, when asked at that time if names of high-ranking policemen were listed as being involved, said he was not briefed about such information.
Meanwhile, in an interview on Nightly News, a man who was approached to carry out the act spoke of a $7M bounty that was offered to him to shoot at President Granger during one of his outreaches. The $7M it was said was offered by a prominent individual. The whistleblower in the interview stated that the businessman told him “… President Granger, we have to have him assassinated before he moves from where he is living, before of course if he moves his security will enhance and you can’t get to him.”

He further related that the businessman told him, “you know we and the commissioner is friends, the whole judiciary is friends, we will take care of you, all you have to do is don’t let who you know get it done to know who is we, and we ain’t want know who you get.”
The informant explained that the businessman entered his house and brought out a large weapon which he collected and minutes later returned. He explained that he had approached the businessman to conduct a business worth $6M when the proposal was made to find someone to assassinate the President and he would be paid $7M. “The next day I go back to he and said watch, me ain’t deh in them thing yo know, me aint even want you tell me back about that,” the informant said, claiming that he never killed anyone before and was just a businessman.

Police Commissioner, Seelall Persaud had condemned the act while noting that it was one of treason. He said, “Any plot to kill the President or to overthrow government is one of treason, and on the other hand if someone tells a police officer something that is false and causes the officer to act in accordance with the call of duty, then there is a charge in giving false information.”

Persaud had explained that security of the state apparatus is the number one function of the Police Force, “if you want a country go into chaos then attack the state apparatus and make it dysfunctional and its chaos, a threat against any President cannot be pushed under the carpet.”
“Even if there are elements within the force with an objective to prevent a professional investigation, it is difficult to implement and almost impossible to do that,” the police chief said.