Guyana's AG Says Embattled Senior Police Officer Will Make History With Fraud Related Charges
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Attorney General, Anil Nandlall says the embattled Assistant Police Commissioner, Calvin Brutus, will go down in Caribbean history as the highest ranking police officer in Guyana “to be implicated in this level of criminality” as the authorities prepare to lay several fraud related charges against him.
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, Nandlall said that charges against Brutus are imminent after the Special Organised Crime Uni(SCU) of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) recommended 240 charges be laid against him following a money laundering probe.
Brutus had named the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police as respondents and the Court added SOCU as an interested third party.
Nandlall told viewers that in filing the court matters, Brutus had provided information to the authorities and the wider public that was not necessary known.
“It is Mr. Brutus through his affidavit, who filed and disclosed to the public a large volume of information that the public was unaware of,” he said, adding “naturally, the respondents, who had been served, had to respond in kind and a lot of the information again got into the court system and by extension the public domain”.
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 million (One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents), including GUY$500 million that was uncovered in bank accounts linked to him.
He told viewers to the broadcast that Brutus will be removed from his position within the GPF once the charges against him are formalised by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
“Obviously, when the charges are instituted, steps will have to be taken by the relevant agency and in compliance the relevant legal process to remove Mr. Brutus from office but that will happen soon,” the Attorney General said.
He suggested that the allegations Brutus might be the first at this scale, at his level in any part of the Caribbean.
“Mr. Brutus will go down in history as perhaps the highest ranking officer of the Guyana Police Force to be implicated in this volume of fraud. I believe he will go down in the Caribbean as an officer of such rank to be implicated in this level of criminality,” Nandlall said, dismissing claims “in certain sections of the media and the opposition” that the government had been orchestrating the charges against the embattled top police officer.
