Some 41 civilians were killed by police between 2015 and 2020 while the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) was in office, the Attorney General (AG) and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall told the National Assembly this afternoon during his Budget 2022 presentation.
His disclosure came on the heels of repeated accusations levelled against successive PPP/C governments of their alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings, with the APNU+AFC claiming hundreds were hounded and executed at the behest of the PPP/C elites. These claims were intensified during the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections, prompting an analysis by Stabroek News which illustrated inconsistencies on the kill list purportedly complied by the APNU+AFC.
Nandlall referred to that article today during his presentation, saying that despite the APNU+AFC’s “discredited diatribe”, the party continues to claim that the PPP/C government is complicit.
The AG said that the definition of extrajudicial killing is erroneously portrayed by the APNU+AFC as anyone who is killed by police, and those deaths “by some somersault of logic”are being laid at the feet of the PPP/C. The AG said that while “police excesses” are found in every part of the World, a government is not responsible.
The Minister said that he called “members of the police force”, who provided him with statistics of persons who died by the hands of police from May 2015 to March 2020 during the APNU+AFC’s time in office.
“41 Guyanese died at the hands of the police force while you (APNU+AFC) were in government. Did anyone of us accuse you of extrajudicial killings?”
Nandlall said while he represented the families of two men who were killed by police in 2019, he did not “jump on a housetop and try to make political milage and treat their tragedy like a political football”.
He continued, “I did what the law said. I never accused you of extrajudicial killing. That is how responsible politicians and leaders behave.”
