Fate of implicated Major with army legal department
Soldiers in other weapons case tried, dismissed
Stabroek News
February 7, 2003
The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) has completed two inquiries into the conduct of one of its officers implicated in the Good Hope arms matter and the issue is now with the force’s Legal Services Department.
Stabroek News understands that the officer, a Major, is still on special leave, without prejudice to his allowances and salary. Initial reports stated that the officer allegedly requested the release of three men who were nabbed by an army patrol on the night of December 3 with a large cache of arms, ammunition and surveillance equipment at Good Hope Housing Scheme, East Coast Demerara.
The men - policeman Sean Belfield and civilians Shaheed Khan, Haroon Gahya and Rajesh Sahadeo - have since been charged with possession of arms and ammunition and are on bail. Some of the items found in the bullet-proof pick-up vehicle at Good Hope were a laptop computer programmed to trace cellular phone users, a town plan of Georgetown and a quantity of high-powered assault rifles and submachine guns, some of which had the serial numbers erased.
Army sources told this newspaper on Tuesday that to date, two inquiries into the officer’s conduct were conducted and submitted to the Chief of Staff, who then handed the matters over to the GDF’s Legal Department.
In August 2002 a number of other soldiers were fingered in a guns-probe. In that case, both soldiers and civilians were embroiled in the theft and sale of high-powered weapons from the army. The army launched a probe after an AK-47 was found in a black plastic bag under a bed at the Ruimveldt Coast Guard base in Georgetown. Subsequent checks revealed that two assault rifles were missing.
It was later found out that one of the soldiers, said to be the mastermind, organised the sales and recruited other ranks to pilfer the weapons.
One of the ranks had admitted stealing an AK-47 in late July while he and others were transporting the weapon from an operation at Cove and John, East Coast Demerara, to a Coast Guard base at Annandale.
The soldiers detained in that probe were to turn State’s evidence to testify against the men who they claimed had bought the weapons. The GDF had maintained that the soldiers would be held until the outcome of the arms conspiracy charges against Mohamed Shaharudin called `Plantain’, of No. 79 Village, Corriverton and Rabindranauth Persaud, of Dowding Street, Kitty.
However, the army on Tuesday reported that the soldiers were tried summarily by the GDF and dismissed from the force “a long time ago.” One AK-47 and an M70 rifle are still missing from that probe. (Kim Lucas)
