This is the criminal justice system in Guyana, according to the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA), which is accusing the government of allowing policemen to literally get away with murder.

“It has reached a stage of no restraint: men are being abducted in daylight and are being executed,” Barrington Braithwaite, the group’s representative told the Disciplined Forces Commission yesterday.

Braithwaite said the conditions in police lockups were inhumane and designed to inflict psychological and dehumanising punishment on suspects, usually at the interrogation stage.

Suspects are more often than not tortured when placed in crowded prison cells with other detainees who might also try to beat or rape them, the commission was told.

“Are you saying that police personnel engineer sodomy of detainees by other detainees or perpetrate it themselves?” the Commission’s legal advisor Bertlyn Reynolds asked him.

“... a bit of both,” said Braithwaite. “One prisoner told us that if a prisoner comes in and he is selected for special treatment -he is the orderly - they can get him to do things. It’s a plantation-type system. They can get him to inflict that type of abuse on another prisoner who they want to break...”

ACDA says detained suspects or prisoners suffer verbal or physical abuse and the women are manhandled or mishandled.

Those accused of more serious offences are killed by police, ACDA charged.

Braithwaite used the case of Franz Britton aka Collie Wills who was arrested by the Anti-Crime Task Force unit or `Black Clothes’ unit in 1999. He was released and has not been seen since.

Braithwaite revealed that an ex-member of the unit had since revealed that Britton was beaten so severely that they decided to kill him and his body was buried at Yarrowkabra.

For their actions policemen are not subject to any disciplinary proceedings and ACDA says this is because the police force is being manipulated by government politicians.

Because of this, “policemen feel they won’t be prosecuted...” Braithwaite said police returned the favour by turning a blind eye during certain investigations.

But he also considered that policemen were not always acting of their own volition. In the case of crooked policemen, he said for their misdeeds they were beholden to political bosses who get them out of trouble.

“It became evident that the PPP felt it needed a police force that would not operate within the law but bend to their whims... [but] if you staff any organisation with political people you mess it up and it leads people to believe that they could operate with impunity, feeling that their [political ties will protect them.]”

ACDA says one of the causes of this interference is that politicians look at public servants as lackeys.

One of the solutions, Braithwaite said, lay in politicians realising that these forces would work much better without the political interference undermining professionalism.

ACDA’s other suggested reforms focus on making the police force more accountable both to the public and to the Parliament, which it hopes will in itself foster professionalism.

This will begin at the community level through the creation of Community Oversight Commissions that will liaise between communities and police divisions. These commissions will liaise with an Independent Complaints Commission, which will supplant the present Police Complaints Authority. The Authority will also liaise with the Police Service Commission which will itself be accountable to a Parliamentary Oversight Commission.

Later, Linda Mingo appeared before the Commission to complain about soldiers and policemen who tore down her shop during a joint operation in Buxton in May and have still to say why.

After the incident Mingo made complaints both to the Police Commissioner and the army Chief-of-Staff, but nothing has happened.

Also testifying at yesterday’s hearing was Winston Saunders of the Impact Base Community Policing Group.

The National Assembly set up the commission to review the operations of the Disciplined Services and is to give priority to the activities of the Police Force.

Justice of Appeal Ian Chang is chairman of the commission which comprises former Attorney-General Charles Ramson SC; former National Security Adviser, Brigadier (rtd) David Granger; attorney-at-law, Anil Nandlall; and Irish human rights activist, Maggie Beirne.