President Granger must turn Sean Hinds into Sammy Gravano

Jul 23, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Sammy Gravano was the right hand man of the Gambino crime boss, John Gotti. To get Gotti, the FBI had to settle with Gravano despite the fact that he had killed more people than your average mob boss. Gravano confessed to 19 murders but most mafia analysts believe that the figure was way beyond that number.

To get Gotti, the FBI had to make a plea bargain with Gravano. The deal was that in exchange for testifying against Gotti, he would only get five years. For a man to serve five years for killing nineteen people was extraordinary. But for the FBI, Gravano was a small fish; he was simply a killer. The FBI wanted the head of a global mafia operation and that fish, for the FBI, was more important than Gravano.

As accusations swirl around Sean Hinds for involvement in the assassination of Courtney Crum-Ewing, Hinds has given an intriguing interview to Travis Chase of HGP television in which some shocking details are revealed.

During the 2011 election campaign, Hinds was charged along with six others for robbery against prominent businessman, Malcolm Panday, at his home in Bel Air Park, next to the Guyana Chronicle.

While on bail, Hinds secured a job with a Government Ministry as a driver and was seen to be active in the election campaign. Complaints were made against him that he destroyed an AFC banner that was hung across the seawall highway at Ogle.

One of Guyana’s most recognized journalists has a video of Hinds on the lawns of State House when Donald Ramotar was sworn in as President. One week after Ramotar became President, the robbery charge against Hinds was withdrawn on the advice of the DPP. The six others were later convicted.

Any media operative who did journalistic investigations into the crime vortex, 2001-2005 would know that Hinds’s name popped up frequently. Different journalists have different stories about Hinds but one thing is undeniable – Sean Hinds has been accused of doing dirty work for the PPP Government. Media operatives would want to hide under the umbrella of bravado by denying that they were not afraid of reporting on Hinds but many were, including this columnist.

One evening around 9 pm, I was bracing on my car after buying pastries from Federal Management cafeteria on Peter Rose Street, talking with Dale Andrews when Sean Hinds passed and slowed down close to us. I didn’t know if he slowed down naturally because of the junction or otherwise, but I told Dale that we should leave immediately. Dale laughed and told me I was too scared but I admitted I was.

Until he gave the interview to Travis Chase, there were just accusations against Hinds. Accusations have become confessions. Hinds has admitted to being part of a death squad during the crime wave, 2001-2005. In the interview, Hinds did not say, “I killed people,” but different words can convey the same meaning as any school boy who learned grammar would know. My own thinking on the Hinds interview is that he has come out into the open because he feels he will be linked to the Crum-Ewing assassination. What Hinds may be doing is signaling to the Granger Government that he wants a Sammy Gravano deal.

If that is so, the Granger Government should offer him that arrangement.

Hit men are small fishes that come dime a dozen. It is their intellectual patrons who are more dangerous. A ruling politician can order a murder on an anti-dictatorship activist, the hit is done, the killer takes his money and moves on. But the politician can go on killing more activists. That politician should be prosecuted using harsher penalties than what the hit man got.

In a column a few months back, I offered my beliefs on a wide array of philosophical subjects including the death penalty. I would vote against the death penalty but I believe, as I wrote in that column, it should be retained for powerful rulers who murder their critics.

Give Hinds immunity so he can begin to expose powerful politicians who once dominated Guyana.

The former ruling cabal denied any participation in extra-judicial killings during the crime syndrome. In the face of the most hardened evidence, they denied it. Hard evidence exists that Leslie Ramsammy was instrumental in the purchase of spy equipment that was made available to Roger Khan.

None of Jagdeo’s Cabinet members said that they personally know or ever met Roger Khan. That is hard to believe. The former hegemonic dictators of Guyana were untouchables when they ruled Guyana. They have been dethroned. The day of reckoning has come. It begins with Sean Hinds.