Latest update January 31st, 2025 6:08 AM
Sanasie‘s perjury case adjourned to July 23
Attorney Datadin blasts slow judicial system in Guyana
Former Secretary of the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) Anand Sanasie, who has been charged with perjury, was released late on Monday on $100,000 station bail and appeared in court yesterday only for the case to be adjourned to July 23 due to a lack of readiness by the prosecution. He was released on a further $150,000 bail.
Anand Sanasie
Sanasie’s Lawyer Sanjeev Datadin informed that the ex-GCB Executive was informed by the Police after he was arrested and taken to their Eve Leary Headquarters, that he was being charged with the offence because of statements he tendered in court during the High Court case involving officials of the GCB, who have now resigned, and the government.
Datadin disclosed that the police cited utterances made by Sanasie in Affidavits during the case in relation to a list of items the GCB had in custody but were in fact owned by the associate company of the board DED Enterprise which they say were false, hence the charge.
Mr. Datadin said those accusations were baseless and explained that as Secretary of the GCB Sanasie is obliged to sign all GCB documents adding that everything he signs is under the instruction of the GCB after their lawyers would have been contacted.
Datadin said the offending document was drafted by the Board’s Lawyer and nothing in the Affidavit is false giving the charges no base in law.
The charges were made indictable and Datadin lamented the lack of readiness of the Police.
“It’s a travesty that for months the Police have been investigating this matter and asked my client to report to the Eve Leary Police Station on four occasions yet they turned up in Court today (yesterday) and were not ready to move forward,” Datadin said.
“The Judicial system in Guyana is so slow in protecting the trampling of the rights of its Citizens that by the time Mr Sanasie and the GCB are able to clear their names the damage would have already been done,” Datadin opined.
This latest twist in the saga started with court proceedings involving two rival factions of the GCB and its affiliates, which prompted government’s move to bring some order to local cricket following by appointing an IMC to run the game after a now famous ruling by Chief Justice Ian Chang, which in part deemed the GCB as a legal non-entity.
This resulted in more trips to the High Court and the locking of the GCB office by the Ministry of Sport.
An eventual order was obtained by the GCB to have the doors reopened. However, the subsequent moves by Government saw legal proceeding instituted and several officials of the GCB, including Sanasie’s home and business premises, searched. This turned out to be the last straw for the GCB officials who tendered their resignations, leaving the IMC to deal with the sport.
In between, the WICB and CARICOM intervened and several meetings were held between the stakeholders and the WICB and by extension the ICC. The latter two stated that Government should not forcibly take over the sport. The WICB subsequently withdrew several international matches from Guyana following Government’s move.
A frustrated Datadin said that an example of the slow working of the judicial system in Guyana is the case between former GCB official and the Attorney General which went to the Caribbean Court of Justice and was heard in a very short time.
“The Caribbean Court of Justice issued a ruling in three weeks and directed the Guyana Court of Appeal to hear the matter. We are ready and have been waiting for a month now and we are still to hear anything about the matter,” Datadin informed.
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