PNCR calls for justice for Van Beek

May 01, 2009 News

“It is critical that a thorough professional investigation be undertaken with the aim of bringing the perpetrators of the Maria van Beek shooting to justice,” said People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Chairperson, Volda Lawrence, yesterday.
Van Beek, who in her capacity as Commissioner of Insurance was appointed Judicial Manager by the Courts to address the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) debacle, was shot in the chest while driving along Lombard Street in the city on April 16, last.
She was, however, able to escape serious injuries and has since been assigned security personnel to prevent a repeat situation. The police are yet to charge someone for the crime.
Lawrence’s call for justice came during the party’s weekly press briefing at its Congress Place headquarters at Sophia.
According to Lawrence, should the police be allowed to act professionally, it will send a clear signal that the Guyana Police Force has the capacity and the will to properly investigate a crime and based on evidence be able to bring to justice the “hired killers and their bosses”.
Reading from a party press statement, Lawrence mooted the fact that the PNCR is convinced that the Jagdeo PPP/C Government’s approach of being complicit with crime and criminals is what is responsible for the present situation. She highlighted that the current state-of-affairs is of such that hired assassins feel free to kill without having to worry that the law’s arm is long enough to reach them and bring them to justice.
Lawrence recounted that the advent of the Jagdeo PPP/C in Government saw for the first time in Guyana a government with criminal underworld links.
“The first indication that the state apparatus under the PPP/C was going to turn a blind eye to crime, which was committed by its supporters or persons linked to the PPP, was the infamous Monica Reece case. It is widely believed that the Police were prevented from pursuing the leads that would have led to the conviction of the perpetrators of this heinous crime.”
The infamous case, Lawrence said, was followed by a number of unsolved crimes, which most Guyanese were convinced were drugs related.
And even as such crimes went unsolved, the drug underworld and other criminal enterprises were clearly strengthening their hold on law enforcement agencies in Guyana and were rendering them impotent to deal with drug related crimes locally.
It was further noted by Lawrence that the infamous Mashramani jail break some years ago compounded an already terrible situation. “Rather than purge the Guyana Police Force of the elements that were corrupted by the criminal world and give the lawmen the resources to fight crime, the Government institutionalised the use of criminals to fight crime and by that very fact initiated the use of hired guns to solve political issues and to stop some criminal groups,” Lawrence articulated.
Accordingly, extra-judicial killings became the order of the day, the executive member added.
“It is in this context that the execution of Ronald Waddell has to be seen. This is more so when it is noted that the President, rather than condemn this brutal act, tacitly sanctioned it by declaring that it was unfortunate.”
Lawrence, as a result, observed that Guyana has found itself in the position where hired guns now feel that they can kill anyone with little or no chance that they will be brought to justice. She further speculated that this development is made worse since the Police are not catching the masterminds and the criminal under-world is in actuality taking over.

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PNCR calls for justice for Van Beek

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