–Former Deputy Police Commander Graham denies giving instructions to clear Ashmin’s building
THE Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) continues to question the role the former top brass of the Guyana Police Force played in the events surrounding the attempt by rogue staff of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to divert votes from the PPP/C to the APNU+AFC during the 2020 elections.
“I did not do it”; “I did not see it,”; “I was unaware” and “total untruth” were some of the more prominent responses given by former Deputy Commissioner of Police, Maxine Graham, as she appeared Monday before the CoI
While she did not furnish the commission with a written statement, Graham, who is retired, armed herself with and consulted personal notes while she was under oath.
Questions put to Graham by commissioners and counsel of the commission had largely to do with the role she and her former colleagues played in the clearing of Ashmin’s building that housed the GECOM command centre back in 2020.
On March 5, 2020, ranks and officers from at least three sections of the Guyana Police Force converged at Ashmin’s building in the midst of a bomb scare. Several of those ranks then played a role in the vehement attempts to clear the building, even after concern was expressed about the safety of Statements of Polls (SoPs).
At the time, Graham was the commander in charge of operations and the liaison officer to GECOM.
Yesterday, counsel to the CoI told Graham that the commission has evidence as to the role she played in the clearing of the building.
Much of that evidence to which counsel referred came from former Regional Commander #4 Edgar Thomas, who continues to serve but in his new capacity as Assistant Police Commissioner and Head of the Presidential Guard.
Thomas appeared twice already before the commission and had told the commissioners that Graham ordered him to clear the building. He claimed that Graham was in constant communication with former Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO) Roxanne Myers, who wanted the building cleared.
Further, Thomas had said that he overheard Myers in conversation with Graham during which Myers said that ranks on the ground were not complying with her instructions to get persons to vacate the building and asked for Senior Superintendent of Police Phillip Azore to be deployed for takeover.
Thomas said that soon after that conversation ended, he observed Azore’s arrival at the Ashmin building.
But Graham vehemently denied everything, especially the conversation with Myers. Graham said: “Not true madam, not true.”
She said that she never spoke to Myers on March 5, and spoke only to Thomas on two to three occasions, as he was not taking her calls.
Graham said that she was monitoring the events at Ashmin’s building from her office via devices used by the police force, which are equipped with cameras.
She said that she had told Thomas to head down to the Ashmin building, but he told her he had systems in place.
Graham said that Azore was calling for backup on the radio, but Thomas still did not leave his office. She said too that she tried several times to contact Thomas via his cellular phone, but he did not answer. She then called his office landline which he answered.
According to Graham, when she called the then Commissioner of Police Leslie James and informed him that Thomas was not answering the calls she made to his cellphone, James told her that he had the same experience. As a result, James told her to let Thomas know that he will be relieved of his duties.
Graham told the CoI that she never ordered the clearing of the Ashmin building and no GECOM official requested that of her.
Graham testified that she was never informed that the Tactical Service Unit (TSU) was being deployed. The TSU is staffed with highly trained ranks and is usually deployed for riot control.
Graham said that because she was responsible for operations, she ought to have known that TSU was deployed, but that was a decision made by none other than the then “top cop,” James.
When told about evidence that she directed Thomas to get all party reps and observers to leave the Ashmin’s building, Graham responded: “That is untrue, total untruth.”
Told about Thomas’s testimony that a GECOM Commissioner was there and there was concern about security of the SoPs, Graham responded: “We had no discussion about that.”
