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High Court wants DPP to explain how she advised rape-charge for Greene

Written by Denis Scott Chabrol
Monday, 20 February 2012 16:48
Source

Police Commissioner Henry Greene

Chief Justice Ian Chang on Monday ordered that the Director of Public Prosecutions, Shalimar Hack provide statements by a rape complainant and an analysis be submitted to show how she decided that Police Commissioner, Henry Greene should be charged.

Hack, in an Affidavit in Answer, has meanwhile insisted that Guyana’s constitution largely insulates her advice from being questioned and she maintained that Greene should be charged and face trial.

“Based on the statements in the file there is sufficient evidence to establish non-consensual sex between the applicant (Greene) and (named woman) to justify a criminal charge; that this is an issue to be determined at the hearing before a jury, and not by the investigators or the DPP,” she said.

Deputy Solicitor General, Nareshwar Harnanan told the court that he would file a supplementary affidavit with the requested information. The statements and analysis are to be submitted with seven days and the matter is due to be heard again on February 27. The DPP is being represented by the Attorney General, Mohabir Anil Nandlall.

The woman has given police several statements, alleging that she was raped on November 22, 2011 by Greene, an allegation he has vehemently denied.

The DPP charged that Greene’s attempt to have the High Court quash her advice and prevent the police from charging him amounts to “attempting to stop a legitimate criminal process and usurp the role of justice.”

Greene has temporarily blocked the police from charging him with rape and has challenged the DPP’s advice, saying that it failed the test of a reasonable probability of a conviction and that the witness lacks credibility.

In th affidavit in answer, the DPP noted that she shall not be subject to the direction or control of any other person or authority. “In other words, it is to be assumed that the DPP will act in accordance with judicial principles , unless there is evidence to the contrary (and) the applicant has not provided any evidence to the contrary.” She also added that there are no exceptional circumstances for the for a judicial review of the DPP’s decision.

Hack argued that based on all statements in the file, the main issue which arises is whether the complainant (name provided) consented to having sex with Greene. She said that since consensual sex is an issue of fact as to who should be believed as a credible, “this credibility has to be tested by cross examination and is ultimately for a jury’s determination.”

“Based on the statements submitted to the DPP by the police, it is the considered opinion of the DPP that there is sufficient evidence therein to institute a rape charge against the applicant,” she said.

The Police Commissioner has said that he and the woman agreed to go somewhere private and they went to the Villa Hotel where they had consensual sex. But in the DPP” Affidavit in Answer, she noted that Greene admitted drove to the hotel and at his insistence she went to buy food from a vendor on Regent Street with GUY$1,000 he had given her to do so.

The DPP’s document also revealed that the woman alleged that while the Police Commissioner was driving her to her Victoria, East Coast Demerara home, he had told her that she must call him everyday and that “if she tried going to any doctor he will know because he know all over Guyana.”

Relating what the woman alleged in a statement, the DPP said the complainant alleged that Greene threatened to have her disappeared and if he had heard that she told anyone, he would kill her and people would think it was the police officer who had threatened her before who had done it and he would be free of it.

While Greene has argued that he ought not to be charged because the complainant is not credible due to the fact that she is the subject of an allegation of extortion, the DPP says “that in any event, a witness credibility is to be tested at cross examination (not before) and still it is then only at the discretion of the judge to allow such testing and ultimately it is for the jury to determine what and who to believe,” said the DPP.

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