IN the wake of several riotous activities in recent times, ATTORNEY-GENERAL and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall, S.C, said more charges will be laid for persons, including political leaders, who engage in those actions.

AG Nandlall on Tuesday during his weekly Facebook programme, Issues in the News, addressed the situation involving several riotous behaviours around Guyana. The AG said that such behaviours from political leaders who incite such behaviours must not be condoned when they attempt to convert these issues into political and ethnic ones by manufacturing scandals.

And importantly, he warned that more charges will be laid for persons who engage in riotous behaviour in a law-abiding society.

During that programme, the AG also called out the Leader of the Opposition, Aubrey Norton for promoting ethnic strife and supporting acts of terrorism in Guyana.

Last week, Norton during a public meeting in North Ruimveldt said that the People’s National Congress Reform-led A Partnership for National Unity (PNC/R-APNU) party will be supporting the 12 men who are wanted for terrorism crimes over their alleged involvement in the violent robbery of Mon Repos market vendors during a protest action along the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) corridor last year.

“They [are] now describing them as terrorists. We will support them. We will do everything to deal with it. But let me say this cannot continue,” Norton told his supporters.

Norton made this disclosure hours after the Guyana Police Force (GPF) issued the wanted bulletins. Thus far, nine out of the 12 men were hauled before the court and charged with acts of terrorism. The men are currently out on $300,000 bail each, while the hunt is still on for the latter.

“We simply cannot as a society countenance and condone this type of lawlessness… This has nothing to do with politics and politicians must be condemned when they attempt to convert these matters into political issues. These are matters of law and order. They are not matters of politics” Nandlall said.

He explained that the state will not tolerate mayhem being unleashed on segments of the population because a person is aggrieved by the behavioural conduct of any state agency, including the police.

Nandlall added that when such issues manifest themselves it is the duty of the state to enforce the law and to do so swiftly and condignly.

The Attorney General also reflected on the “horrendous death” of teen cousins, Joel and Isaiah Henry, whose mutilated bodies were found aback Cotton Tree Village, West Coast Berbice in 2020.

Nandlall said during that time persons of a “political nature” encouraged rioters to block the roads, blaming the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) supporters for the atrocities committed against the teens.

“As it turned out, it had nothing to do with politics. But they were fanning that dangerous flame against an entire village. Claiming that villagers from that village, Cotton Tree, Berbice, were responsible for the Henry boys’ brutal murder.

“And as it turned out, nothing was further from the truth. Investigations done by the police led to the arrests of several persons, none of them from that particular village; they came from other parts of the country,” he said.