THE failure of the Guyana Police Force to take initial statements from ranks who were hunting wanted man “Rondell ‘Fine Man’ Rawlins and his criminal gang in the general vicinity of the Upper Berbice River back in 2008, is proving to be a real challenge for officials seeking to ascertain whether the police had any part to play in the murder of eight gold miners in the Lindo Creek Commission of Inquiry (COI).
The Commission’s lawyer, Patrice Henry told the Guyana Chronicle that while the commission has been conducting interviews with some of the ranks who were involved in the 2008 operation, there are no existing statements that could be cross-referenced with the information that the ranks are providing now.
Henry told the newspaper that some 30 ranks of both the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) and the police force have been identified as having been a part of the search parties at the time hunting Guyana’s most wanted fugitive and his associates. Henry said that most of the ranks have been subjected to interviews, but noted that, “the challenge is because there was no proper investigation (on the part of the police) the ranks never provided any statements.”

NO CAN DO
The difficulty, Henry continued, is that in the interviews, and even if these ranks are placed to testify, “you can’t challenge a man if he turn and says he can’t remember, or says to you it was 10 years ago, Sir.” Henry was at the time answering questions from the newspaper as to whether the commission had received the identities of the ranks who were on the joint-service operation within the Upper Berbice River area, in particular, the Christmas Falls location where the ranks clashed with the ‘Fine Man’ gang and the Lindo Creek location where the miners were murdered and their bodies burnt; and whether these ranks were going to be placed on the stand to give an account of what they did while in the Upper Berbice area.
Henry said that despite the claim that an intense search was being conducted for the criminal gang, it is the police’s defence that they operated in the Upper Berbice area, but the search parties had not ventured to Lindo Creek and surrounding hillside in search of the hiding men. There is no statement available from members of the search parties as to whether or not they would have encountered anyone outside of the criminal gang during the operation in the Upper Berbice location. There is also no statement from the individual ranks indicating what they would have done during their time in the Upper Berbice area, whether based on instructions from their superior(s) or other.

TIME SEQUENCING
Henry said that while this aspect of the case proves a major challenge to his getting to properly cross-examine the ranks, the COI would have to depend on time sequencing and other such important information provided in the testimonies of witnesses.
When lawyer representing the interest of the Lindo Creek victims’ families, Nigel Hughes took the stand at the COI Wednesday, he told the commission that he received information from one of his clients that ex-policeman-turned career criminal, Uree Varswyck, who was fatally shot by the police after escaping from the Camp Street Prison in 2017, was reportedly part of the Joint Services’ team that went into Lindo Creek in the Upper Berbice River, looking for the ‘Fine Man’ gang.
“He also asked me to indicate that another senior rank of the Guyana Police Force, who is still in the Force, was also on that team that went into Lindo Creek,” Hughes told the commission. The families’ lawyer opined that the police were “uninterested” in investigating the Lindo Creek massacre at the time, as they seemed more interested in identifying the victims, using the help of regional firms than finding out who had slaughtered them.
This, the lawyer said, was despite repeated offers to the police, the Home Affairs Ministry and the GDF to allow UK- government-owned Forensic Science Service to come to Guyana and conduct an independent investigation that would allow for the identification of the victims and an investigation into the circumstances surrounding their death.
Should the police be found culpable in the murder of the Lindo Creek gold miners, Henry is positive that one of the recommendations out of the Commission would be for criminal charges of murder to be laid appropriately, as this is also required by law.