Merai will only cooperate with int’l investigators

Aug 22, 2011 News

Officers’ drug link…

– has informants to protect

By Dale Andrews

Assistant Commissioner Steve Merai is not likely to cooperate with local investigators who have been mandated to probe his allegations of links between senior police officers and alleged drug dealers.
This is according to sources close to the controversial officer.
According to one reliable source, Merai is more inclined to cooperate with an international Commission of Inquiry.
This follows calls by the two main opposition groupings, the Alliance for Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) for an independent inquiry comprising commissioners from outside of the jurisdiction.
The police in a press release following revelations in this newspaper had stated that Commissioner of Police Henry Greene had written to Merai requesting that he provide evidence to support his allegations.
Merai, this newspaper was told, had already indicated that he was not too comfortable with providing evidence to Crime Chief Seelall Persaud and head of the police Office of Professional Responsibility Mohamed Jameer, both of whom he had accused of initially turning a blind eye on the matter.
According to the source, Merai had provided some evidence during the acrimonious meeting when the allegations were first made, but these were dismissed by Commissioner Greene as reckless statements.
Merai had alleged that two officers of the Guyana Police Force, the Commissioner’s Personal Assistant and a senior operative of the Tactical Services Unit were driving vehicles that were owned by alleged drug dealers.
But both officers in their defence indicated that they had borrowed the vehicles since their personal ones were “down”.
This newspaper was informed that Merai informed the meeting of dates and times that the vehicles were being driven, explaining that the officers were in possession of them for more than three months.
The source said that Merai argued that despite this, all the persons who are now mandated to investigate his allegations appeared ignorant of this fact, although they are all based at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, where the vehicles were parked on a daily basis.
The source said that it was at this point that Merai indicated to the meeting that he would not cooperate with any local investigation, since he has his informants to protect.
It was reported that during the meeting, Merai also questioned the registrations of the vehicle and suggested that checks be made to verify if the right customs duties were paid for them.
However, the source said that Commissioner Greene immediately ordered the vehicles removed from the Eve Leary compound.
“If they really wanted an impartial investigation, right there and then the commissioner should have detained the vehicles and have the crime chief investigate the claims that Merai was making,” the source pointed out.
Merai’s revelations, this newspaper was informed, shocked everyone present at the meeting, especially since the officers involved did not deny the allegations except to state that they were unaware that the owners of the vehicles were drug dealers.
One of the officers has since resigned.
According to the source, even Commissioner Greene hinted that the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit had shown an interest in the owner of one of the vehicles in question.
He said that Merai even challenged the meeting to dispute his allegations that the owner of the said vehicle was a drug dealer.
Merai also referred to a shooting at a popular main street bar which he also linked to the owner of the vehicle.
Kaieteur News understands that the Commissioner was caught off guard by this revelation.
Questions were also raised over the instructions by Greene to remove the vehicle from the compound when he had already given directives to the crime chief to investigate the allegations made by Merai.
“He should have allowed the crime chief to make that determination on whether the vehicles should have been released or impounded pending the outcome of any investigation,” the source told Kaieteur News.
What was more shocking was the fact that the information was leaked to this newspaper which ran several front page articles on the matter, leading to the police issuing a warning that it will deal condignly with any officer who is caught divulging sensitive information to the media.

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