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TORTURE, BLOODSHED & ETHNIC EXCLUSION IN GUYANA
David Leander was only seen by his attorney, Basil Williams, after Guyanese Supreme Court Judge, Jainarayan Singh, order that he be produced following Habeas Corpus proceedings. Leander’s torture and inhumane treatment is being likened to the infamous US military Abu Ghraib Prison scandal in Iraq.

Leander was so incapacitated that Justice Jainarayan Singh was, on November 2, 2007 forced to examine his condition in a vehicle in the court yard. Singh then ordered that he be taken to a hospital, where he was admitted. There has been no official condemnation of or inquiry into these acts of torture.

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RELATIVES ALLEGE BARTICA TEEN BEATEN BY POLICE
STABROEK NEWS: A video showing an injured Terrence McKenzie lying in the Bartica hospital nursing injuries to his face, back, legs and hands was being circulated yesterday by relatives who said the public needed to know what the police had done to the 18-year-old.

They are alleging that excessive force was used on McKenzie twice while he was in police custody and that on the last occasion he was knocked unconscious.

They claimed he was beaten shortly after the initial arrest and again when he was recaptured. According to relatives a team of six policemen at Bartica took turns beating him during the first thrashing while the second one allegedly involved a cutlass.

This newspaper later telephoned the Bartica police station and an officer who declined to give his name said the incident had not occurred in the way the family was claiming. The officer did not deny the beating and said that the police were merely doing their job though he would not elaborate on what he meant by this. Additionally, the officer said that McKenzie was a known character in the area.

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TORTURE CLAIMS BEING PROBED - ROHEE ASSURES
STABROEK NEWS: Two Thursdays ago Jones and Sumner were released from Eve Leary with their genitals seared and their bodies lacerated with burns and bruises after blows allegedly at the hands of police and soldiers on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway. The men had told this newspaper that they were first taken to Camp Ayanganna, and then transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department, Eve Leary…

“They really beat us and I think at one time they would a kill I,” Sumner had told this newspaper. He said during the torture the policemen threw a corrosive liquid on their bodies as well as gunpowder. They were also placed on a sheet of cardboard face-down and their feet were bound and eyes blindfolded and in this position, they said, they were beaten on their heads. They said they were also thrown into a pool of water on the highway.

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GUYANESE MORE CONCERNED WITH FOOD, SHELTER THAN TORTURE - MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS CLEMENT ROHEE

STABROEK NEWS: Guyanese are more concerned about the goodies arriving in their barrels from overseas, acquiring a house lot and their own home, than the torture of two Buxtonians men allegedly by members of the security forces, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said yesterday.

“When you finish with one allegation there will be another. I am not expected in my life time at the ministry to dispense with all these allegations,” Rohee said. He added that home affairs ministers come and go so do commissioners of police.

“I have done a walk-about recently and I asked people what were their major concerns. No one raised this one [torture of the men] except some sections of the media You and I know the major concerns of people nothing to do with allegations of torture of two men. People are concerned with getting water, their own home and land and being able to buy food and unpacked barrels coming from the US,” the security minister said.

Rohee’s making light of the matter contrasted sharply with Chief of Staff of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Commodore Gary Best who told a media conference recently that he was concerned that the two Buxton men were taken into custody by the joint services without wounds on their bodies but emerged from the lock-ups beaten and bruised, allegedly by the men in uniform.