More questions than answers

Aug 13, 2009 Editorial

The jury is out in the Robert Simels trial for witness interference and for possession of spy equipment. Their decision should come at any time and whichever way they vote, there would be implications for Guyana.
Guyana has no law restricting the importation of spy equipment but there are laws governing the interception of telephone calls. The Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company specifically states in its regulations that “GT&T undertakes that it will, subject to the Laws of Guyana, fully ensure that the privacy and confidentiality of communication through the services provided by the company are not impinged.”
The company further undertakes that it “will not disclose to anyone any information in respect of calls, attempted calls or communication made to and from any customer line, except in conformance with the “law and in compliance with an order from the judicial authorities.”

It has transpired that Shaheed Roger Khan in the United States court, admitted to “hotwiring” the telephone line leading to the office of the Police Commissioner and to recording conversations. He has admitted to committing a criminal offence under the laws of Guyana and breached the guaranteed by the telephone company. However, nothing was ever said or done and one must now wonder whether action could only be taken if there was a complaint.
One can only assume that there was no complaint but with the information out there, there should have been some attempt at an investigation to ascertain where the breach occurred and who facilitated this breach.
What we do know is that when news of the breach was circulated people began to distrust their telephone service. All too often one could hear people talking about having something to say but that they would prefer to do so away from the phone. This was happening long before the government moved to pass the law on wiretapping.

But even so, the major telephone companies have signaled to the government that they are not prepared to invest in the costly equipment needed to monitor calls as requested by the authorities on the authority of the judge. It therefore stands that there could be no monitoring of telephone calls at least legally.
Yet calls are or were being monitored. The police have a piece of spy equipment to prove that as far back as 2002—seven years ago—that people were monitoring calls. In the United States courts, it transpired that one of the people monitored was Robert Corbin, the Opposition Leader.
Again, one would expect an investigation. In fact, such an investigation should have been mounted seven years ago. This is the job of the police but even the police commissioner who had his phone “hotwired’ could not find the time to do any such thing.
People in this country expect to be protected. President Bharrat Jagdeo, responding to a query on the likelihood of investigations based on the revelations in the United States courts, said that the Police Commissioner has assured him that the United States Embassy in Georgetown has promised to release all the details.

This might be coming too late because the trail might have been swept clean. But there is still the question of the tardy reaction following the seizure of the spy equipment. Indeed, Guyana does not have regulation restricting the importation of such equipment but it can surely clamp down on illegal possession and it did.
Why was there no prosecution in this area? It would have been interesting to see the answers to some of the questions. Surely the police would have had the evidence because once calls were monitored they would have been recorded on the laptop. This would have been enough to secure a conviction. And by extension, the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company would have had the right to remove all telephone services from entities owned and operated by Shaheed Khan. We know that this was never done.
We now come to the Guyana Revenue Authority. How could such an import land under the eyes of the GRA? Where was the invoice? What did it read? Where was the point of origin? The US courts are also talking about having another set of spy equipment shipped out of Guyana via FedEx. Was the GRA involved? That entity surely finds cocaine, an illegal shipment. How did it fail to detect the spy equipment.
There are more questions than answers.

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