Nothing is being offered to Sean Hinds - Ramjattan

Nothing is being offered to Sean Hinds – Ramjattan

Jul 28, 2015 News

– “Nobody is going to have a free lunch in this country!”

Sean Hinds

National Security Minister, Khemraj Ramjattan, has made it clear that self-confessed death squad member, Sean Hinds, may be in no position to bargain, even as police investigators are questioning him on the shocking revelations he made during a recent interview with a television journalist.
Ramjattan yesterday maintained the position that was first posited by Minister of State, Joseph Harmon that Hinds will not be let off from criminal charges if he implicates himself during interrogation by the police.
Ramjattan was asked what is in it for Hinds should he volunteer the vital information that could provide answers to decades old questions about the killing of several Guyanese youths.
“There will be nothing in it for him… What’s got to be there for him? So he’s helping, so what? If he murdered, we must allow him to get off of that?” Ramjattan asked.
Hinds turned himself in to police yesterday in the company of Attorney-at-Law, Nigel Hughes, almost two weeks after it was revealed that he was wanted in connection with a serious offence.
The police expect him to give them a detailed statement on the operations of a death squad that he claimed he was a part of during the mid 2000s. That squad killed scores of persons with suspected criminal backgrounds.
The Public Security Minister explained that Hinds has been called in by the police for purposes of ensuring that what he has to say will be recorded officially.
“We would like to see him give an official statement and also be questioned and interviewed thoroughly about everything that he knows. It is not the best to just give a TV interview, it is also to give a police interview,” the Minister emphasized.
He said, though, that discretion will be used to ensure that every piece of information is obtained regarding what Hinds has revealed.
But Ramjattan stressed that at this stage the administration is not contemplating amnesty.
“Nobody is going to have a free lunch in this country.”
Hinds has owned up to being part of a “death squad” – of mainly civilians – that was responsible for the hunting down and killing of many youths with criminal connections.
That death squad, he said, was headed by the late Axel Williams who was well known for his close links to former Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj.
Hinds, however, made it clear that the death squad was in no way connected to the phantom squad which was headed by now imprisoned self-confessed drug kingpin Roger Khan.
“If I wasn’t a part of this killing squad, this country wouldn’t ah gat law and order…because there was Shawn Brown and Dale Moore…and Chip Teeth and all these guys,” Hinds said, referring to some of the notorious criminals who created a reign of terror between 2002 and 2006.
“Late in the nights you used to see fire…people burning up people in cars on de seawalls, and we used to go after these people,” he added.
He revealed, however, that the death squad was not operating in isolation, explaining that some members of the regular police force were also a part of their operations.
“We used to get guns from the police. I used to go and uplift a gun from CID headquarters, a machine gun. So this thing was not no one-sided affair… like if I was operating pon me own, or me and Axel Williams operating pon we own,” Hinds declared.
“We were guided and been in communication with senior people from CID headquarters,” he added.
Hinds also claimed that he was contracted to execute political activist Ronald Waddell but was beaten to the punch by others.
The former death squad member spoke of a guns-for-sale operation at the Tactical Services Unit headquarters of the Guyana Police Force.
The Public Security Minister said yesterday, “If he (Hinds) did what he did and now he wants to bring it out, well fine. The trouble is let him come, and we will decide that (amnesty) later.”
Ramjattan acknowledged that the law allows for plea bargaining but he will not pronounce on it now because that is not in his discretion to do so.
He said that it is the Director of Public Prosecution who will make that decision.
“Look, we are a very serious administration and we are going to take care of all those who did what wrongs they did in an earlier period,” Ramjattan said.