A police constable who was accused of the shooting death of 39-year-old Cecil Sampat on July, 25 last, was today slapped with a manslaughter charge.
25-year-old Troy Munroe appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court and was not required to plead to the charge.
The charge alleged that on August 6, 2020, at Mandela Avenue, Georgetown, they murdered Sampat.
Munroe was released on $150,000 bail, and the matter was adjourned to January 5, 2021. The serving member of the Guyana Police Force was represented by attorney-at-law Patrice Henry.
Munroe, along with Police Corporal Godwin Thomas, was initially charged with the murder of Sampat. However, last week, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) withdrew the murder charges.
Guyana Standard reported that on July 25, 2020, at around 02:00 hrs, Sampat and his friends were heading home in a car driven by 28-year-old Winston Fraser.
It was reported that Sampat and Fraser, along with two other friends, were traced by ranks from Agricola, East Bank Demerara (EBD) to D’Urban Street, and then Mandela Avenue, Georgetown, where police officers allegedly riddled their car with bullets.
Following the shooting, more than a dozen officers were in custody, but after a thorough investigation, only three were placed under close arrest after being identified as the alleged shooters from video footage of the incident.
None of them admitted to shooting the unarmed men, sources say. The ranks involved in the shooting had accused the men of shooting at them first. However, no guns were found in the men’s possession, and investigators were unable to corroborate their statements using the footage obtained.
It was also revealed that as part of the protocol, the guns used by the ranks were sent for ballistic testing.
Meanwhile, one of the car’s occupants, Seon Greenidge, who escaped unhurt, had stated that after the shooting, the officers gun-butted and kicked all of them before taking the injured Fraser and Sampat to the hospital.
