Georgetown: The controversial Region Four Statements of Poll (SOPs) for the March 2020 General and Regional Elections, were on Monday delivered to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) Eve Leary.
The delivery of the SOPs to Crime Chief, Senior Superintendent, Wendell Blanhum comes days after the Chief Justice (Ag), Roxane George-Wiltshire, ordered the Supreme Court’s Registrar, Sueanna Lovell, to release certified copies of the SOPs and Statements of Recount (SORs) for a police investigation into election fraud cases currently being prosecuted.
These documents were being kept by Lovell after the Chief Justice (Ag) had ordered that they be released to her for safekeeping, following the dismissal of the first Elections Petition Case filed by the opposition.
In April, an application was filed in the Court by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, and the Commissioner of Police (Ag), Nigel Hoppie, to have the documents released to investigators.
They requested an order directing the Registrar to certify the photocopies of the SOPs made by her as being true copies of the originals and taking other actions and steps as may be lawful, necessary and appropriate to render the photocopies admissible in a court of law.
Additionally, the applicants asked the Court to grant any order that may be necessary to facilitate the obtaining of the certified photocopies of the SOPs and SORs of the March 2, 2020 Regional and General elections in a lawful manner.
The DPP and the Commissioner had requested the elections documents in order to facilitate a fair hearing of the charges against key officials of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Those officials are the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield; the Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxane Meyers and the Returning Officer (RO) for District Four, Clairmont Mingo, who are presently facing charges of Misconduct in Public Office in the Magistrates’ Court.
It is believed that Lowenfield, Mingo and Myers misconducted themselves participating in an attempt to rig the elections by inflating the number of votes cast in Region Four.
A recount of ballots was conducted and showed that the numbers presented by Mingo were inflated.
The GPF and the DPP had contended in the application for the documents that the data contained in the Region Four SOPs and SORs, forms relevant evidence for the prosecution to prove the commission of the offences.
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