“My brother was not a double agent” – Anne Wagner tells COI

Mar 27, 2015 News

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– maintains he was WPA member

By Sunita Samaroo

A day after she testified that lone murder suspect, Gregory Smith, was made a scapegoat by the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Anne Wagner maintained that her brother was a member of the said party and had not been operating as a secret agent for any other entity in those days.
Wagner made the assertion while under cross examination by People’s National Congress (PNC) lawyer, Basil Williams during the Commission of Inquiry into the death of WPA’s leader, Dr. Walter Rodney.
On June 13, 1980 Dr. Rodney died when a “walkie-talkie” exploded in his lap in the vicinity of the Georgetown Prisons, Camp Street, Georgetown. This was shortly after he reportedly uplifted a device from Smith and was testing it.
Nearly 35 years later, Wagner returned to testify that Smith, a former Sergeant of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), had not been an agent of the ruling party – the People’s National Congress, the then Prime Minister, Forbes Burnham or the State.
She maintained too that the late politician’s death was an accident which was caused by his negligent handling of the device he had. Her brother, she said, had handed Dr. Rodney a triggering device, but Dr. Rodney had not used the device as instructed.

Wagner made clear her belief that the PNC government had not killed Dr. Rodney.
The witness had previously testified that on that fateful night, the late Politician set out to further his cause by “any means necessary” and had earlier recruited Smith to build a triggering device for a bomb.
The 72-year-old woman had told Commissioners that as far as her brother knew, the explosive was to be used on a building and Dr. Rodney could not ascertain whether anyone would be hurt in the process.
Wagner, who migrated to the United States of America in 1970, testified for the third time before a High Court Library packed with reporters, family, lawyers and political activists. Her tale was based on conversations she had over the years with her brother.
The witness authored ‘Assassination Cry of a Failed Revolution: The Truth about Walter Rodney’s Death’ with her brother and the book has come under intense scrutiny by lawyers during the inquiry.
It was under Williams’ questioning that the witness confessed that when she embarked on producing and publishing the book, she had no experience in writing books or investigating stories.
Moreover, she told the commission that in her dealings with her brother she did not require him having his signature affixed to his manuscript; something she did not believe she needed to have.
Williams probed too whether the witness was told by the Commission that she needed signed supporting statements for each chapter of her book, and she said she was not told so. She said too that she was surprised by the apparent need for signed statements.

In fact, Wagner said she had no idea that her book would have been the focus of the cross examination. She said she had no inkling that that would have been required of her. The witness said that had it not been so, she would have walked with the necessary documentation.
She was asked when her brother recounted his experience in relation to the book, whether she had additional information that what he had told her happened in 1980, and she said no. “I had no cause to doubt him or double check him on anything,” the Commission heard.
The chapter where Smith spoke of an imposter coming to his home indicating that he was his son came under question. Smith had not seen the boy since he was nine, but they had a photograph.
The Commission heard that when he saw the person, the individual bore some sort of resemblance, but eventually he realised the person was an imposter.
Wagner was questioned extensively about how she went about verifying the stories told to her by Smith. These are stories of specific instances where these events and threats to his life took place in Cayenne.
Lawyer for the WPA, Christopher Ram pointed to a chapter that was written by Smith’s wife, Debra Johnson, in Cayenne, where she recollected certain events. In her piece she set out a specific timeline.
Counsel questioned that the portions by her match the portions that have been added to Smith’s chapter, but were not present in his manuscript.
Essentially, Ram probed whether it was taken from the wife’s piece and placed in Smith’s chapter, but Wagner maintained that she had not changed anything, and there was a piece of the manuscript that she had not brought to the Commission.
Counsel probed where the deviations of the book came from and if they were added by Wagner or the publisher and if those deviations and additions were made by someone other than Smith, how reliable they would be.
She was questioned too about portions in the book which was compiled by other people and a part contributed by his daughter, Ann Johnson, who was born to him, while he was going by the name Cyril Milton Johnson, also came under question by Ram.
Also, a Stabroek News article also came under question by the WPA lawyer. Wagner said that the article had inconsistencies in Smith’s story and the one published by the local daily.
She said, however, they had never challenged the newspaper about the contents. The article had claimed that Smith was heading to Berbice to get help from his father when it appeared as though the WPA was accusing him of Rodney’s death.
This contradicted the account Wagner provided to the Commission as well as the one provided by Smith in the book.
“The inconsistencies, the fabrications in the news, the lies: all those things support Gregory’s theory of the WPA’s involvement in Dr. Rodney’s death,” she said. She contended that a lot of reports peddled in the media were fuelled by non-truths.
She said that her brother was driven out of Guyana. She insisted that her brother was not responsible for the politician’s death.
The Commission heard too that Smith was an electronic technician, but the witness stated she did not know if he was qualified to handle the triggering device.
“Do you realise you have made some serious charges against the integrity of the Working People’s Alliance?” the lawyer probed. Unmoved, the witness said yes. Ram asked her whether she had any personal evidence to support her claims, but she said no, since her account was from her brother’s experience.
The WPA lawyer completed his line of questioning yesterday and Wagner will return to stand today for cross examination by the PNC lawyer.

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