Poor police work on the high seas

Jun 26, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor;
Please permit me space in your news paper to highlight these issues concerning the recent act of piracy that was committed on fishermen from the Upper Corentyne area; one fisherman was found dead, thrown overboard by the pirates and three are still missing their bodies anchored somewhere at the bottom of the sea.
There was widespread coverage from all the media houses when the incident happened and now after some weeks everyone seems to forgot what happened; some fishermen are afraid to go out to sea whereas others have no choice but to go for they have no other skills. These acts of piracy have been going on for years, especially on the Upper Corentyne and no one from the relevant authorities seems to have a plan on how to prevent acts of piracy.
What is being done is that when these incidents occur then investigations are being done, some arrests are made but because fishermen are unwilling to come forward to give evidence because of loopholes in the laws, the pirates are allowed to go free.
Fishermen have to go out to sea to work and they are afraid when they go and testify and because of some legal technicalities or poor police investigations these pirates are given small sentences or set free and the pirates go out to sea and reach them there and harm them. Now back to the recent act of piracy, the police did an excellent job in arresting the pirates, some of them confessed and they are now in jail on the charges of committing murder during the piracy attack.
It’s the very first time pirates were apprehended so quickly and again the police should be commended but there still remain some controversy as to what happened to the fish and glue that was in the boat used by the pirates. It was reported that one of the owner of a certain boat that were robbed ( three boats were robbed during the piracy attack ) bought the fish from the owner of the pirate boat and later they both split the money totaling over one million dollars
Sir I am no expert on legal matters but I think there is some breach of the law here, if the men were charged with murder and piracy then the proceeds from the sale of the fish should be confiscated by the police and not given to these men.
Members of the fishing industry are shaking their head in disbelief when news of this incident reached them.
Many of them felt as if they were sold out by once again by poor police work. When effort was made to get some clarification from the police in charge of the investigation he said he will get some advice from his superiors as to the way forward; up to now he cannot gave an answer.
Mr Editor incidents like these make fishermen feels that they are not safe from pirates’ attacks. With all the evidence available the police cannot tie up all the loose ends in an investigation, then there is no end in sight for acts of piracy. It would not surprise me to hear a few months from now those charged in this case out of prison; free to do these acts again…
Concerned Citizen

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