Mother in relentless search for missing son Human rights group queries govt on his whereabouts Stabroek News April 29, 2000 The Government of Guyana has been asked by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to account for the safety and whereabouts of 40-year-old Franz Britton called Collie Wills. Britton has been missing since January 25, 1999 after reportedly being released from police custody by a senior police officer, who had ordered his incarceration at a police station in downtown Georgetown. Following complaints lodged by Britton's mother, Irma Wills, the commission wrote to the government on April 4, seeking assurances of his safety and his whereabouts if he was being detained by the government. Under Article 29 of its regulations, the government must reply in 90 days, following which the commission will issue a report in which it will identify the person(s) culpable for his disappearance. If no such identification was made, Wills said, she would then take the matter up with the United Nations to have an international indictment issued. Such an indictment could mean that the person(s) determined to be culpable could be arrested and tried for Britton's disappearance if they left Guyana. Observers have told Stabroek News that former Chilean dictator, General Augusto Pinochet's detention in Great Britain was effected under this procedure as a result of his reported involvement in the disappearance of 16 Spanish nationals. Britton, according to Wills, had been detained by a senior police officer at Cove & John Police Station, East Coast Demerara where he was held for two days before being released on $25,000 bail. When he returned to collect his possessions which had been taken from him at the station, Britton was again taken into custody by the same police officer who brought him to town and ordered that he be held at the Brickdam Police Station. Following enquiries at the station and at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary, Wills said that she was informed that he had been released by the same officer. She said that she was subsequently informed by a man who had since died that when her son left the station he was seen entering the car of the same police officer with the assistance of a policeman from the Quick Reaction Group. Wills said that since then she had received messages on her answering machine, which said that her son had been killed and was buried somewhere along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway. She said too that at a habeas corpus hearing before Justice Carl Singh, the court was told by the same senior police officer that after her son's release from Brickdam that he had travelled to Suriname. Wills said that though dismissing the case, Justice Singh had ordered the officer to have her son located in Suriname. Unable to get any assistance from the government Wills has waged a relentless campaign outside Guyana petitioning a number of international human rights organisations for assistance in getting an explanation for her son's disappearance. (Patrick Denny)