Criminality not an opportunity to secure political power- Ali

Last Updated on Monday, 12 May 2025, 18:26 by Writer

President Irfaan Ali on Monday warned against the glorification of crime and criminality being used as tools to secure political power.

Addressing the opening of the 39th Annual General Meeting of the Association of Caribbean Commissioners of Police, he said both government and opposition must treat crime seriously.

“Crime and criminality is not an opportunity to get into government,” he told the opening ceremony that included regional police commissioners, top Guyanese police officers and members of the diplomatic corps.

He said crime erodes public trust in a democracy, resulting in that system to be put on its “knees”.

“Criminal gangs pose a direct threat to a democratic system of government,” Dr Ali said.

The Guyanese leader said Guyana would be building a regional forensics crime laboratory.

He also offered to facilitate training opportunities in India and at the Guyana Defence Force National Defence Institute for the police forces across the Caribbean.

Dr Ali noted that during the 2002-2008 crime wave, the coffins of criminals were draped with the Guyana flag and political leaders spoke at their funerals.

During that spate of crime that started with the escape of five prisoners from the Georgetown Prison, heavily armed criminals had used Buxton as a safe haven.

From there, they had killed, robbed, raped and abducted numerous persons.

Among them was a United States Embassy official who was subsequently released unharmed.

There were also two massacres in Lusignan and Bartica as well as the gunning down of a government minister and his siblings.

The family of then Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh has over the years called on the Guyana government to provide answers about that incident.

The then Guyana government had also been cited for hiring death squads to counter the violent gangs.

A bullet proof vehicle had been intercepted at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara with sophisticated cell phone call interception equipment that is only imported by governments.

Firearms were also found in possession of Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan who was later convicted in the United States for cocaine trafficking.