Police officers went to Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed’s residence yesterday and requested that he report to the Criminal Investigation Department Headquarters for questioning over an alleged corrupt transaction, according to a video posted on his Facebook page.
Mohamed described the deployment of several police vehicles and officers as another attempt to arrest him and accused the authorities of pursuing him instead of investigating what he maintains was an assassination attempt against him.
In the short recording accompanying his statement, an officer identified himself as Superintendent Sarabo when asked by a Mohamed employee. Mohamed’s post named him as Rodwell Sarabo.
The employee told Sarabo that Mohamed had asked that his attorneys be contacted. Sarabo said police were investigating an alleged corrupt transaction and that Mohamed should present himself at CID Headquarters on Vlissengen Road for questioning.
The clip showed several vehicles and police officers. The exchange supplied no further details of the allegation.
Mohamed argued that police could have contacted him directly rather than deploying officers to his home.
“The Guyana Police Force and the PPP Government have the Leader of the Opposition’s contact number. They could have simply called him instead of deploying a number of police vehicles and officers to his residence to make a public spectacle of the matter,” the statement said.
He described the operation as a waste of police resources and alleged that it was intended to distract from the CCTV footage he released concerning the October 12 shooting outside Senior Superintendent Prem Narine’s residence.
Mohamed maintains that the recording disproves the official account and establishes an assassination attempt against him. Those claims remain disputed allegations.
The visit follows two police statements issued within minutes of each other on October 26 concerning a 20-year-old constable stationed at the Force’s Command Centre.
The first said investigators were examining allegations that the constable downloaded surveillance footage without authorisation and provided it to Mohamed for $800,000.
The second asserted that the rank admitted obtaining the recording on Mohamed’s instructions and accepting payment at his Houston, East Bank Demerara residence.
According to that police account, Mohamed dispatched an employee on October 24 to transport the constable to his home, where he paid him and collected a flash drive containing the footage.
Police further alleged that the constable spent part of the money on shopping and handed the remainder to his mother. The alleged admissions were recounted by police, who said detectives were seeking to recover the money and were investigating several possible offences.
Neither statement announced charges against Mohamed or the constable.
At his press conference, Mohamed gave a different account of how he obtained the footage, saying members of the Special Branch headed by Narine supplied it because they disagreed with the incident.
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