Asking Julia Johnson to cover the Simels trial was an excellent and responsible judgement

Aug 09, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Your newspaper displayed excellent and responsible judgment in asking reporter Julia Johnson to provide coverage of the Robert Simels trial in Brooklyn, New York, because even though both Kaieteur News and SN initially relied on Mr. Enrico Woolford’s reliable coverage, Ms. Johnson would help reduce questions about Mr. Woolford’s credibility as a professional and independent journalist since two or more journalists from Guyana assigned to the case can produced almost identical news accounts on the facts of the case without consulting with each other .

And after reading Ms. Johnson’s filed report, “Army removed beheaded cane-cutters from Buxton front to backlands – Simels,” (August 6), it is now more understandable why the Government has not seen it fit to send a reporter to provide coverage for the Guyana Chronicle and NCN, because contrary to Government’s allegations of Mr. Woolford injecting his political bias in his reports, Ms. Johnson confirmed the nature of the exchanges taking place in the court and offered a description of what she observed inside the court, including a huge closed circuit screen that could allow observers standing on the periphery of the court room to view what was being tendered as evidence, including phone numbers.
Before going on, let me also thank you for being balanced in your headlines, because last week it was Health Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy getting pilloried as the one who authorised the purchase of the spy equipment, whereas this week, we are being told Simels said under oath that ‘David Clarke, Gordon Benn and Edward Collins were involved in removing of the decapitated bodies of slain cane-cutters from the front of the village to the backlands and that the same men, then serving members of the GDF, gave the Buxton group that were identified as the Taliban, ammunition.”

Just as the Minister Ramsammy link stunned us and forced him to defend himself, I am sure this piece of news also stuns us and now we await the defence by the men named.
And let us see now if the Government and the PPP will jump all over Ms. Johnson for reporting this angle or if they will conveniently use it for cheap political mileage to pillory others.
Meanwhile, as the case gets ready to go to the jury by next Tuesday, I am not quite sure that based on what little I have read so far that the prosecution has made a compelling case of witness tampering against Mr. Simels, and so I won’t be surprised if the jury moves to acquit.
It doesn’t mean Mr. Simels is innocent, but sometimes prosecutors can botch their cases because of lack of preparation or even if they have all the pieces of the puzzle they did not fit all the pieces together to make for a convincing presentation. Still, who knows what the jury has learned that I have not learned so far and may yet find him guilty.
Even as I sit and compose this letter, this entire case has the ingredients ideal for a book and or a movie. It is fact-based; not fiction. It has drugs. It has money. It has politics. It has multiple murders. It has wiretapping. It has forced extradition. It has accusations and denials. It has lawyers, witnesses, judges and a jury.

It has confessions and plea deal. It has cooperating witnesses. It may even have arson. And the funny thing is, it is not even over yet, because the man at the centre of this storm, Roger Khan, is yet to be sentenced and no one knows what the judge will do at that time.
In addition, we don’t know if the US will pursue those named in the case to determine the nature of their associations with Khan in Guyana and whether he received state protection for himself and or his drug operations in Guyana before, during and after his Phantom Squad activities were made public.
Fortunately for Khan, he offered to settle for a 15-year sentence for the charges brought against him, so he doesn’t have to openly spill the beans on his actual role in Guyana as a drug baron, businessman and crime fighter. Unfortunately for the Guyana Government, it was not spared damaging exposure because of Khan’s closed-door plea offer, because even though the current court case is supposed to be about Mr. Simels, it has had an inadvertent appearance of the Guyana Government being the one on trial, with damaging testimony being revealed of a Government that was in cahoots with a drug dealer, money launderer and conspirator to extra-judicial murders and, therefore, was too compromised to exercise legal or moral authority to deal with a politically-inspired criminal enterprise that seemed set to bring down the Government.

One has to now wonder whether this entire case involving Khan and now Simels may yet be able to do what the politically-inspired criminal enterprise known as ‘Freedom Fighters’ couldn’t do? We now know enough to strongly suspect the Government is facing serious questions that could bring it to its knees, but what we don’t know is what Khan revealed to US prosecutors as part of his plea offer to them for him to be spared being asked to stand trial.
Like most observing Guyanese at home abroad, US prosecutors had to suspect that Khan could not have done all he did – from drug smuggling to money laundering to setting up businesses to engaging in extra judicial killings – without the knowledge or even tacit approval of either the Government or officials in the Government, so it is likely they would not settle for any plea offer without Khan coughing up names, dates and roles played by certain people in Government.

I should also say at this point it was good to learn that the Police Commissioner has finally answered demands for him to produce the laptop reportedly seized from Roger Khan in Guyana. But here are two quick questions: First, why would the Commissioner simply produce the equipment and then refuse to answer questions about it? The least he could have done was to have representatives from the GDF present with him to confirm that based on their own records showing serial number, make and model of the equipment, it is the same one they seized from Khan at Good Hope in 2002.
Second, how can the same spy equipment that was seized from Khan in 2002 still be in the police’s possession in 2009, when newspaper accounts quoted then Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj as saying it was returned to Khan to continue using after illegal possession charges against Khan and two others were thrown out by a magistrate?

Minister Gajraj even went further to explain after the equipment was returned to Khan that it was being used for the purpose which it was imported and so its use was not illegal.
How he knew that much about its actual use was not clear to reporters back then, but after its return to Khan, we learned that some type of equipment was actually used by Khan to bug the phone of the Police Commissioner, Winston Felix police. And even though we now know there was more than one spy equipment in Guyana during Khan’s shenanigans, we still don’t know which was used for what purpose.
What we also do know is that the US authorities did seize spy equipment from Mr. Simels office and from evidence reportedly tendered in court, it is virtually impossible not to conclude that Khan did use that equipment in Guyana as part of his activities.

What either Mr. Woolford or Ms. Johnson could now help us determine is whether a bill of sale was entered as evidence showing that particulars, like serial number, make and model, match the equipment now with the US authorities. We read where Peter Myers of Smith-Myers testified under oath that it was the same equipment sold to the Guyana Government, but as serious as testimony under oath is, it seems as though some doubters want to see evidence of a bill of sale with all the particulars before they are convinced.
Some even want to see a copy of the letter of authorisation signed by a Government official before they will accept that this is not part of a broader conspiracy against the Jagdeo regime.
In closing, to Mr. Woolford and Ms. Johnson, Guyanese everywhere owe you a huge debt of gratitude for doing your jobs as fiercely independent and competent journalists in the face of growing hostility from people who obviously are deeply worried where this case might take this Government and country.
Emile Mervin

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