Officials of the Dade County Medical Examiners Depart-ment in Miami, USA, are still testing samples taken from the body of murder accused, Mark Thomas also called `Kerzorkee.'
Contacted on Friday, a senior official in the toxicology department of the lab who preferred not to be named, said there was no problem with the samples and they are working on them. "We have not completed the testing but we are working on the samples and we want to do a very good job," the official said.
He pointed out that the line of work at the lab is very complicated and they need to take time. Questioned whether the length of time the samples took to arrive at the lab could cause a problem, the official said "no." He added that they are used to dealing with samples in various forms of preservation and as such the length of time does not pose a problem.
He said the length of time taken to conclude the testing should not be cause for a conclusion to be made that there is a problem with the samples.
The official could not say how long the testing would take, but said on completion, they would issue the result to the agency that requested the testing. The Guyana Police Force sent the samples to the lab.
"We will complete the testing as soon as possible and you can be assured that we are not taking any longer than we should. But we want to be as thorough as possible …," the official said. He said they understood the samples are part of a high profile case and as such were working towards completing them soon.
Government Pathologist Dr Nehaul Singh had performed an autopsy on the body of Thomas on February 4 but it was inconclusive. Neither he nor Dr Edward Simon, who witnessed the post mortem, could come up with a cause of death.
Samples were then taken from 12 parts of the man's body, sealed and handed over to the police to be shipped to the US for testing.
There has been much speculation about what could have killed Thomas and this wasgiven more fuel when the doctors could not determine a cause of death. Thomas died on February 1 at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where he was a patient since January 16. He had collapsed at the Brickdam Police Station after being told he was charged with the January 5 murder of cattle farmer Shafeek Bacchus.
He was charged along with Ashton King, owner of the A&D Funeral Home and Shawn Hinds who are both in prison awaiting the commencement of the preliminary inquiry. The three were charged after Bacchus' brother, George, said they among other persons were responsible for his brother's murder.
George Bacchus, following his brother's death, had publicly stated that he was an informant for a death squad, sanctioned by Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj, which has been responsible for the deaths of many young men.
He had said the squad was formed to deal with dangerous criminals during the crime spree but after most of them were eliminated the squad got out of hand with members killing whomever they were paid to kill.
The man had named the three charged with his brother's death as being part of the squad.