Guyana Post

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Wednesday March 31 , 2021

Shaheed Roger Khan says Fagundes died in his place …those bullets were meant for me’

Former Minister Annette Ferguson wins $20 million from Jagdeo for libel

POMEROON MAN CHARGED FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER

Guyana Post Wednesday March 31, 2021

Shaheed Roger Khan says Fagundes died in his place …those bullets were meant for me’

Convicted Drug Lord, Shaheed Roger Khan says that THE murder of gold dealer/biker Ricardo Fagundes, is an attack on his family and that he takes it very seriously, as those bullets were meant for him.

Fagundes was murdered last Sunday outside of Palm Court.

He was shot over 20 times about his body with a high-powered weapon in an executionstyle killing.

As Fagundes was laid to rest Monday, Mr. Khan said that that night when Fagundes died it was a sign that an attack meant for him especially, his friends and his family, and a bigger tragedy was

averted.

“It’s difficult for me to face Ricardo’s Friend and family because he died in my place.

Make no mistake about it, Ricardo died in my place. All those bullets were meant for me. All 20 something of those bullets was meant for me. I’m standing here almost speaking to you as from the grave,” Khan said.

Khan began his tribute by saying that he wants to clear the air on what Fagundes was to him. Khan noted that Fagundes was not his associate or worker but his son who stuck by his side for many years and that he takes this killing

very seriously.

“This is an attack on my home. So, whoever did this didn’t kill an associate, didn’t kill a friend, they came into my home and murdered my son. This is an attack on my home and my family,” he noted.

Khan also wasted no time in expressing his disappointment in the manner in which the crime is being investigated by the Guyana Police Force He said with no arrest being made he believes that the murder case has been contaminated by some higher heads given the manner in which the matter was treated on the night of the incident and

even now.

Khan explained that this can be deduced from the night when roadblocks are usually set up after a crime.

There were none and the getaway car drove all the way up to Linden He said that car was on the street for 30 minutes waiting for them to come out of Palm Court and police who would normally patrol the area did not even question the presence of the car at the corner of a street.

Additionally, Khan said that according to his source it has been noted that the case orders were given to some member of the force that the matter should not be touched.

This is said to signal great injustice as it remains a crime in which Fagundes’s life was taken away and has now been treated as one in which lesser energy has been put into the investigation.

Despite what has happened, Khan maintained that the force has failed the friends and family of Fagundes and is calling for the intervention of the President, Irfaan Ali. “I’m calling on the President; I’m appealing to the president. Mr. President, we are asking you, I am asking you on behalf of the friends and family of Ricardo to give this investigation the

very same attention that you give the henry boys.

“Ricardo’s life is no less important than any other lives in Guyana.

We are asking for political will; we are asking for the resources for this investigation to be impartial,” khan said Khan said that the fact that he is taking a great risk by saying such but for Fagundes, he must do so.

Fagundes was gunned down outside palm court, just last Sunday after he left to take a phone call then bring around the car in which Khan travels.

As he approached the vehicle two men, with high-powered weapons, exited the white wagon and fired repeatedly at Fagundes. Even as he tried to escape, the men keep firing.

Fagundes later sustained over 20 gunshot wounds about his body and died right on the spot.

The wagon suspected to have been the getaway car was later in the week found in Swan Village, up the Soesdyke/Linden Highway completely burnt.

Former Minister Annette Ferguson wins $20 million from Jagdeo for libel

Minister of Communities Annette Ferguson.

Ferguson had filed a libel lawsuit against him last year. The default judgment was as a result of Jagdeo’s failure to file a defence within the required time.

Last year, Ferguson, who served as a minister under the previous APNU/AFC Government filed a libel suit against Jagdeo, who was the then Leader of the Opposition and Guyana Times in which she sought more than Justice Sandra judgment has ordered Vice to pay $20 million in $20 million in damages Kurtzious in a default President Bharrat Jagdeo damages to former junior for the libel.

The lawsuit stemmed from statements made

by Jagdeo in which said that Ferguson acquired significant wealth within only two years of serving in the Government.

Jagdeo alleged that the former minister used public office to acquire several plots of lands at Eccles, East Bank Demerara on which she was building a sprawling house.

The statements made

by Jagdeo were later published in the Guyana Times. In the lawsuit, Ferguson maintained the statements were

slanderous and untrue and caused irreparable damage to her character and reputation.

Ferguson had argued that the statements and publications suggested that she acquired unexplained wealth by dishonest means.

The former Government minister called on Jagdeo and Guyana Times to provide evidence to the court to support the statements.

Apart from $20 million in damages, Jagdeo was also ordered to pay $75,000 in court costs to Ferguson.

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Guyana Post Wednesday March 31, 2021

POMEROON MAN CHARGED 11-year-old drowns off Enmore seawall FOR ATTEMPTED MURDER

A 33-year-old, Pomeroon man has been slapped with the charge of attempting to kill his Wife by chopping her to her head while severing some of her fingers and was granted bail.

The defendant, Richard Mohamed, a farmer of Lower Pomeroon, Region Two (Pomeroon-Supenaam) appeared in the Anna Regina Magistrate’s Court before Magistrate

Esther Sam and was not required to enter a plea.

He was placed on $500,000 bail and was ordered to return to court on April 19, 2021, when the matter will be heard in the Charity Magistrate’s Court.

The charge read that Mohamed at Friendship, Lower Pomeroon River, Region Two, attempted to murder his reputed wife on x March 25, last.

Mohamed was at the time was in a heated argument with his reputed wife, who is six weeks pregnant.

He reportedly became annoyed and chopped her about her body; in her head and fingers.

The woman screamed for help, which led to the neighbors rescuing her. Mohamed fled the scene but was later arrested. He confessed to the chopping but said he did it in self-defense.

Mohammed said that his wife would usually torment him, and on the day of the argument, she pulled a knife on him and placed it to his throat.

He furthered claimed that he then took a cutlass and chopped the woman in self-defense.

With several lifethreatening injuries, the young woman remains in critical condition at the Georgetown Public

A family in the Foulis, East Coast Demerara area has now gone into mourning. The 11-yearold relative drowned at the Enmore Seawall.

The lad has been identified as Latchman Ramanand of Sixth Street, Foulis, ECD. Reports are that early yesterday, the young boy went fishing with a group of friends. The

group later ventured to the seawall, where they were all fishing when tragedy struck.

According to information, high, strong waves took the young boy out to sea. The boy was never found until later that afternoon.

He was rushed to the nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival

ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA TO ARGUE FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE AT BIDEN SUMMIT

Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, says he intends to make “a robust contribution on behalf of all CARICOM countries” when he participates in the Summit Meeting on Climate organized by US President, Joseph Biden.

Prime Minister Browne is one of two Caribbean leaders invited

by President Biden to the Summit of just 40 Heads of Government from around the world. info@guyanapostonline.com

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness is the other Caribbean invitee.

The Summit will be held on April 22 and April 23 with President Biden as Host. In issuing the invitation, President Biden said he was inviting the leaders of the world’s major economies as well as “heads of other countries that are demonstrating strong climate leadership and are especially vulnerable to climate impacts”.

Since becoming

Prime Minister in March 2014, Prime Minister Browne has been a strong voice advocating in international fora, for climate justice for Caribbean states. As recently as Monday March 29, Browne told a Meeting of Heads of State and Government on the International Debt Architecture and Liquidity that Caribbean states “are the least contributors to the greenhouse gases that cause Climate Change,

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yet they are its greatest casualties”.

The Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister said he welcomed the invitation to participate in the Summit, organized by the US President, to make the case for small states everywhere.

At the meeting, cohosted by Holness and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, on Monday, Browne argued that small island states “are facing an unprecedented

triple-faceted challenge: coping with extraordinary public health demands from the pandemic; managing the social and development impacts of its economic devastation; and preparing for the enlarging effects of Climate Change”.

Against this background, Browne, who is a former Banker, laid out proposals “to redesign the international debt architecture and

to build a bridge to recovery that works to benefit the world”.

The Antigua and Barbuda leader said that before the April Summit with President Biden and other leaders of major economies, he intends to consult with CARICOM Heads of Government and to work closely with Prime Minister Holness “to present a strong and compelling Caribbean position” for climate justice.

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Guyana Post Wednesday March 31, 2021

No, the idea of CARICOM is not dead

By Sir Ronald Sanders (The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Massey College at the University of Toronto. The views expressed are entirely his own) A commentary, published on March 8 by Camillo Gonsalves, a Minister of the Government of St Vincent and the Grenadines, was headlined “Every Island for itself’. The first line was unequivocal in stating that “The idea of CARICOM died on December 16, 2020”.

Camillo Gonsalves is a Caribbean man and an integrationist. Only deep frustration could have occasioned his decision to publish the commentary on his blogsite. In the event, his remarks prompted a series of questions to me from Johnson John rose, a Caribbean journalist of known repute. I reproduce below the questions he posed and my answers.

Q. Do you agree that the idea of CARICOM – the principle of solidarity, the ethos of all for one, and one for all – has died? Why? A. The ‘idea’ of CARICOM is not dead. The ‘dream’ of a more perfect union is not lost. The idea and the dream are too basic to our future for them to be abandoned.

CARICOM as a whole is extremely rich in natural and human resources, but individual member countries are weak and vulnerable. In the international community, individual countries have little or no bargaining power; only when they act collectively do they have any strength. Fourteen votes collectively have a modicum of power; one vote, backed by no military might or economic clout, is by itself of little value.

Q. What’s your greatest concern about the future of the movement?​ A. That only the demands info@guyanapostonline.com

of survival, resulting from the disaster, will cause leaders of the individual countries to recognize that the ‘sovereignty to which they cling is only exercised against each other; it is meaningless in the global power theatre where powerful countries and regions dictate their relationships. Leaders should see the disaster looming in Climate Change and its threats to the very existence of islands and mainland territories with low-lying coasts, agriculture, tourism, and human habitats. Lack of individual capacity is evident in each country’s inability to respond robustly to pandemics, such as COVID-19. None of them has large enough populations or enough money to compete with richer nations that have bought the available vaccines, depriving the rest of the world.

Q. CARICOM has endured a lot of internal strife but has managed to survive, could it be that the issue of Venezuela’s sovereignty will be what destroys the movement?​ It is not Venezuela per se that has caused division and conflicting positions in CARICOM. The real cause is dependency. Some CARICOM countries depended on Venezuela for oil and ran up a large debt in deferred payments; others depend on the US and Canada for aid, markets, and help with borrowing.

When CARICOM countries recognize that they could be less dependent on external forces and less obliged if they pool their resources and their sovereignty, they will be more independent in their decisions and action. This same argument applies to the cruise ship industry and to foreign airlines which play them off against each other, resulting in fewer revenues to each of them and greater advantage to the airlines and cruise operators.

Q. Why didn’t Antigua and Barbuda join Trinidad and Tobago in seeking a boycott of the OAS until Guaido is removed? ​ Trinidad and Tobago have not boycotted the OAS ‘until Guaido’s representative is removed’. Trinidad and Tobago is an active member of the OAS. Eleven of the 14 independent countries of CARICOM at the OAS do not recognize Guaido or his representative’s legitimacy in the OAS. These 11 countries, including Antigua and Barbuda, do not recognize

Man scalds paramour over cellphone password

Guaido’s representative or his vote or participation in any decision-making in the OAS. Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Haiti do deal with Guaido’s representative – this latter point was what motivated Gonsalves’s blog.

Q. How do you feel about CARICOM’s current path?

A. ​It is not good for the autonomy of individual states in the international community. Such autonomy as they enjoy is being eroded. Economically, unless the leadership – at both the political and business levels – acknowledge that their markets are puny and their production minuscule in global terms, and that integrating their markets and production would strengthen each of them as integral parts of a larger, more competitive unit (in terms of raising money on better term and bargaining for better terms of trade) the current path will weaken each of them still further.

Perhaps the truth is that they all know that, ultimately, they need CARICOM which is why none have left it, and none have chosen to destroy it. It may well be that those who encourage the notion of their own vehicle, keep the engine of the CARICOM bus running because they know that they will need to board it to drive to salvation.

I understand Camillo Gonsalves’s frustration. I share it. But I also know that we cannot pronounce CARICOM dead.

Its lifeblood continues to pump in the veins of Caribbean people everywhere who long for a single region in which they can travel freely on one passport, move to jobs, set up businesses anywhere in the region, just like the people of the 50 states of the United States do.

The imperatives of survival rest not in separateness but in togetherness where the bounty of the region is shared by all in a truly integrated single area, and where standing together in the international community gives the Caribbean solid meaning.

This does not mean giving up national identity; it means recognizing that we can also benefit from a Caribbean identity – just as people from Texas are Texans and Americans; and people from Italy are Italians and Europeans, so too we can be Jamaicans, Barbadians, Antiguans and yet be the Caribbean.

A Linden man has found himself in some trouble after he is suspected of dousing his girlfriend with hot water and hitting his sister-In-law with a concrete block during a fight over a cellphone password.

Reports coming out of Region Ten indicated so far that the man and woman got into a heated argument last evening.

That argument would have started after the woman had reportedly refused to give the boyfriend her phone password.

In anger, the man reportedly picked up and a mug of boiling water and threw it at the woman’s face. He then proceeded to hit her on the head with a piece of wood.

As the confrontation continued, the woman’s sister tried to intervene.

She was also hit but this time with a three-inch concrete block to her leg.

The fight has resulted from one woman being treated for third-degree burns, while her sister sustained a broken leg.

The man is said to be under arrest, as the investigation continues.

Hunt on for rape suspect

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Police are now on the hunt for a man, who allegedly has raped his family member in a Region One location.

According to the police, they are currently investigating an alleged sexual activity with a child by a family member. The incident occurred between Saturday, February 28,

2021, and Sunday, March 01, 2021, in Region One. The Force has maintained that the matter was first investigated by the Child Protection Agency and reported to the police on Wednesday, February 24, 2021.

With the allegation raised, the suspect has reportedly fled the area

of the crime and is yet to be arrested.

Since the investigation was launched also, the suspect has also been fingered in other crimes of a similar nature.

As such, the force has taken a step to investigate all the matters. It is also focused on the apprehension of the suspect.