The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said in a November 3 letter that it did not have the file concerning a rape allegation against Deputy Commissioner of Police Fazil Karimbaksh, more than a month after police publicly acknowledged that they were investigating the complaint.
“We hereby inform you that we do not have this file,” Deborrah Wilson, Confidential Secretary to the Director of Public Prosecutions, wrote to attorney-at-law Yashobu Parks of Dexter Todd & Associates. The letter was in response to Parks’s October 29 request for an update on the file. It gave no indication of whether the office had previously received it or where it was being held.
The police have not said anything about the file, its whereabouts and whether charges will be brought against Karimbaksh.
Kiskadee Watch sought a comment from Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond through her office yesterday on the matter involving the location of the file. An official said the office would get back to the newspaper, but no response had been received by press time
Speaking at an APNU/PNCR press conference yesterday, attorney-at-law Dexter Todd said he had seen no official statement from the Guyana Police Force confirming that the file was missing. Todd said he was not directly involved in handling the matter and was awaiting a response from the police.
Todd said that, as he understood it, the matter was still at the investigative stage. If the file could not be located, he said, investigators could reconstruct it by taking fresh statements from witnesses. “I don’t believe it’s fatal to moving forward,” he said.
Kiskadee Watch reported on November 2 that it had received information that the investigation file had been completed and forwarded to the DPP’s office. At the time, the newspaper’s inquiry to that office had gone unanswered.
The investigation stems from a complaint by a woman who alleged that Karimbaksh, the head of the Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), had sex with her without her consent on two occasions, threatened to kill her if she ended their relationship and later pointed a firearm at her. Opposition figures called for an independent investigation in late September after repeated questions from journalists to the police went unanswered.
Police first publicly acknowledged the investigation on October 2, after Walrond confirmed the complaint on the Starting Point podcast and disclosed that Commissioner of Police Clifton Hicken had appointed an investigative team. The first police statement did not name Karimbaksh. On October 8, the Force identified him and announced that he had been sent on leave pending the outcome of the investigation. It also confirmed that the inspector had been transferred to Regional Police Division Four ‘A’. Walrond said the transfer was made at the inspector’s request.
Separate correspondence raised questions about Karimbaksh’s duty status. In an October 7 letter, Hicken granted him 174 days of vacation leave ahead of retirement, starting November 8. Karimbaksh’s attorney, Rizwaun Mohamed, challenged Hicken’s authority and said his client was entitled to 118 days. Mohamed also protested an alleged instruction barring Karimbaksh from his office on October 12. Hicken withdrew the vacation leave letter that day after reconsidering who had authority over a deputy commissioner. The withdrawal did not address the status of the leave announced on October 8 pending the investigation.
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