GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Oct 23, CMC – The head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU) of the Guyana Police Force (GPF), Assistant Commissioner Fizul Karimbaksh, Wednesday denied media reports that the organisation had contributed 25 per cent of a multi-million property owned by the embattled Assistant Police Commissioner, Calvin Brutus.
In a statement, Karimbaksh described the the contents of the media reports as “ egregious, patently false and libelous, without merit and dangerously misleading to the public”.
The statement said that the author of the article “is being used by Brutus not only to attack SOCU’s investigators but also to attack the credibility of the investigations being done against him.
“All of this is being done in the fanciful hope that it will help Brutus with the charges that are to be instituted and may constitute an obstruction to justice, a criminal offence,” SOCU said.
Last Friday, Justice Gino Persaud denied Brutus permission to leave Guyana for the United States for “legal and personal” and “medical reasons”.
Speaking on his weekly “Issues in the News” broadcast on Tuesday night, Anil Nandlall said that charges against Brutus are imminent after SOCU recommended 240 charges be laid against him following a money laundering probe.
Nandlall, who is also the Minister of Legal Affairs, said that several bank accounts belonging to Brutus and his wife had been frozen under the Anti-Money laundering Act, with the exception of one to which his salary was being paid.
Nandlall said the accounts had “large sums of money” and that Brutus had been unsuccessful in getting the courts to unfreeze those accounts.
SOCU has indicated that its probe of the Assistant Commissioner covers more than GUY $800 millio (One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents), including GUY$500 million that was uncovered in bank accounts linked to him.
Karimbaksh in the statement on Wednesday described the media report as “the most vile abuse and misuse of press freedom” and that “there is no evidence to substantiate the preposterous article.
Karimbaksh said he would be instituting legal proceedings against the publication and its publosher “and will also instruct a criminal investigation to be instituted in respect to obstruction of justice”.
CMC/gti/ir/2024