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I played no major role in charging NBS Managers — Commissioner of Police
A day after two senior government functionaries tried to extricate themselves from what is being viewed as an injustice meted out to three senior officials of the New Building Society, the country’s Police Chief is also distancing himself from the episode.
Commissioner of Police (ag), Seelall Persaud
Commissioner of Police (ag) Seelall Persaud said that he was not personally responsible for the file on the investigations into the multi-million-dollar fraud at the New Building Society, that led to the charging and subsequent dismissal of three senior officials of the financial institution.
The Ombudsman had found that a grave injustice had been done to the NBS officials, including former Managing Director Maurice Arjoon who had filed a complaint with the Ombudsman.
Persaud’s name was mentioned in the damning report that was prepared by Ombudsman, Justice (rtd) Winston Moore. The report pointed to sloppy police work, and more specifically, missing portions of the police file.
The report was referring to “11 pages of notes from Minister’s meeting”.
The Police Commissioner (ag) when contacted by this newspaper, described the missing portion of the police file as exhibits that were lodged to be produced as evidence during the trial of the three senior NBS officials.
The Ombudsman’s report stated that the missing exhibit indicates interference that was highly irregular.
“The fact that this document was removed from the police file was not surprising,” the report stated.
When contacted by this newspaper, Persaud, who was the Head of the Police Criminal Investigations Department (Crime Chief) at the time when the investigations were done, indicated that he cannot be held personally responsible in any way for the police lapses in the investigations.
“I did not have personal custody of the file at the time…the file was passed from hand to hand,” he told this newspaper.
The lapses were identified by Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police, Henry Chester, whose assistance was solicited by the Ombudsman to review the police file on the matter.
According to the Ombudsman’s report, having reviewed the file, Chester observed that it was not the complete police file; 11 pages of notes from a meeting with a Government Minister were missing. Some of the deficiencies from the police file were pointed out to the Commissioner and a second file was sent.
However, the file was still missing the document that was requested. This was pointed out in a second letter to the Commissioner, in which the Ombudsman urged that a special effort be made to locate it in light of the allegations made by one of the aggrieved NBS officials.
The Commissioner subsequently responded that the 11 pages were not found.
The Commissioner also attached a note to the Ombudsman that the investigating rank, Assistant Superintendent Paul Wintz, had died.
The Crime Chief would have had no major role in the actual investigations, since he would have delegated such task to another senior officer who was under his supervision.
He would have only been responsible for sending the file to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice.
Speaking with the Kaieteur News last Thursday, the Commissioner (ag) said that the Police Force has an established system for the storage of exhibits.
“They ought to have been in a cabinet but the man is dead and we don’t know where he stored it. We can’t ask a dead man for the exhibits,” the Top Cop declared.
He said that he cannot see why anyone would want to remove the exhibits.
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