Melly Mel says gov’t targeted her family under guise of drugs raid

Well-known social media commentator and critic of the Guyana government, Melissa Ann Atwell, also known as Melly Mel, on Tuesday accused the Irfaan Ali-led administration of using the police force to target her family under the pretext that the lawmen were looking for narcotics.

“The plan was to frame my son but yall didn’t know my son don’t live there. Is two old people yall go and reach in the house. My family is now the target of this government and the Guyana Police Force,” said the New York-based activist on her Facebook page.

No one was arrested, police said.

The law enforcement agency said between 4:10 p.m. and 5 p.m., a police team led by a gazetted officer, Assistant Superintendent Mahendra Singh, acting on intelligence received, went to the home of Debbie Atwell, a 56-year-old unemployed woman of Lot 86 BB Eccles, East Bank Demerara, where a search warrant was executed for narcotics.

Police said they searched the house and while they were searching the yard, they observed a black plastic bag containing a transparent plastic (Ziplock) bag, which had a quantity of suspected cannabis, over the back concrete fence in the alleyway next to some banana trees. “The suspected cannabis was thereafter retrieved and taken to the Providence Police Station, where it was weighed, amounting to 27 grams. Additionally, the suspected cannabis is being processed for fingerprints. Investigations are continuing,” police said.

But Melissa Atwell said her 87-year-old grandmother, who suffers from dementia, and her mother were harassed and intimidated. She said a van load of police claimed that drugs were being posted in barrels and boxes. “Doing everything to break me because I refusing yall hush money. This God don’t sleep,” Melly Mel said.

Ms Atwell’s Facebook page sometimes contains posts of what appear to be official documents from government ministries and the Police Force that she indicates were evidence of corruption or maladministration. Public Works Minister Deodat Indar recently sued her and opposition parliamentarian Sherod Duncan for defamation on account of expressions she purportedly made in a Facebook appearance with him.