Release of SOCU protocols further extended

Mar 20, 2016 News

The release of Standard Operating Procedures for the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) has been extended yet another week.
According to Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan, a Draft of the Protocols is set to be presented to the Cabinet and National Security Committee before it is circulated to the relevant bodies and made public. Ramjattan said that the Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud was tasked with drafting the procedures in which SOCU will be guided.
The Public Security Minister disclosed that he has since seen the guidelines drafted by the Top Cop.
‘It is in my opinion well done,” Ramjattan added. He noted however that there may be a bit of fine tuning of the document, hence the delay.
During last month’s budget debates, Minister Ramjattan announced that protocols had been already drafted for the unit. He told the National Assembly that the document consisted of six pages of standard operating procedures.
According to Ramjattan, the protocols are aimed at ensuring that SOCU, which comes under the purview of the Guyana Police Force, comes in line with the Force’s Standing Orders.

Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan

SOCU was established under the then People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) administration, but the regime failed to implement the protocols for that specialised unit that is tasked with probing financial crimes.
However a call for the standard operating procedures to manage the affairs of the SOCU intensified following the deaths of Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Sgt. Robert Pyle, his wife Stacy, and Canter truck driver, Linden Eastman. They died in an accident on December 30.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) had stated that Pyle, driving motor car PRR 9118, was in pursuit of another vehicle during a “Special Operation” on behalf of the Special Organized Crime Unit (SOCU), when he lost control of his vehicle and crashed into an oncoming Canter truck on Carifesta Avenue.
According to reports, Pyle was part of a team that was carrying out an operation in the vicinity of the residence of embattled head of the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited, (NICIL), Winston Brassington.