Charrandass investigation stalled, solid evidence uncertain- Ramjattan admits  

Commissioner of Police Leslie James

Months after Police Commissioner Leslie James proclaimed that the police investigation of Charrandass Persaud was “a matter of national security” the channels which one would have expected to be tapped into in keeping with an investigations of that status and classification are 1- not something that seems likely at this time and 2- the investigation has now stalled.

Both of those developments were confirmed by Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan who was at the time responding to questions from BIG Smith Crime Watch on the side-lines of an engagement at his Brickdam office on Wednesday morning.

Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan

“I have not gotten back any brief in relation to that, Charrandass has left and the investigators were supposed to I think; ask him some questions and they are not getting him, whatever has been the status for the past couple of months, it has just stuck there and I have not heard back anything there, I have not heard back from the commissioner in relation to that” Security Minister Ramjattan told the related.

Ramjattan was asked if not getting onto Charrandass Persaud coupled with the commissioner’s statement that the investigation was “a matter of national security” if any attempts were made to engage the Canadian authorities through diplomatic or other channels given the relationship the two countries share, in an effort to have Charrandass return to Guyana to answer the questions that investigators have for him.The minister responded with the following.

“I don’t know if that might be a possibility, I doubt it (What exactly are you doubting? The minister was asked) I am doubting that, that might be utilized. For Canada you have to have evidence, solid evidence, especially when it comes to a citizen of Canada. I don’t know if we have managed to accumulate that”

He further stated that it was information and suspicion that was acted upon to determine whether someone else paid Charrandass Persaud to do what he did. Ramjattan explained that those would be some very technical and legal issues and that he does not know if they have evidence and who would be forthcoming to testify about that and give a police statement to that effect.

With his latest comment on the matter, Minister Khemraj Ramjattan was then asked if he still things that the investigations then should continue to be classified and regarded as “a matter of national security” to which he quickly responded “on yes it does” as he pointed to the fact that sometimes investigations are stalled and sometimes they are laid down for years before being reopened by just new information which detectives may come by somewhere down the line.

Charrandass Persaud who last year voted in the National Assembly during a sitting for debates of a no confidence motion, voted with the opposition’s People Progressive Party Civic who took the motion to the house.

Charrandass Persaud

Persaud was at the time a sitting member on the government benches, representation the Alliance for Change which forms part of the Coalition that makes up the sitting government. Following his vote in December, Charrandass with assistance from persons associated with the opposition, made his way out of the National Assembly requested protection from locally based Canadian authorities until he made his way to the airport where he boarded a plane out of Guyana en route to Canada where he has remained since.