Georgetown: The Guyana Court of Appeal is scheduled to hold a further hearing on March 25, 2021, in an appeal filed by Donald Rodney against his 1982 conviction for possession of explosives without lawful authority.
Donald Rodney is the brother of politician and historian Dr. Walter Rodney, who was assassinated in June 1980 when a bomb exploded in his car.
Following the conviction, it is understood that Donald Rodney filed an appeal within the statutorily prescribed time, and was granted bail pending appeal. In a Notice of Appeal, Donald Rodney contended that all he would have said in his defence before he was convicted was not included in the records of appeal. Among other things, he argued that extraneous and inadmissible statements had been placed in the records of appeal.
Further to that, he contended that the prosecution established no case against him, and as such, the matter should have been dismissed at the close of the prosecution’s case.
Donald Rodney is being represented by Attorney-at-Law Sanjeev Datadin, while Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Dionne McCammon, is appearing on behalf of the State.
According to reports, Donald Rodney was the only eyewitness to the June 13, 1980 killing of his brother. However, two years later, he was convicted for possession of explosives without lawful authority and was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment.
Dr Walter Rodney, who was the co-leader of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), was killed in Georgetown when a walkie-talkie given to him exploded in his car. A Commission of Inquiry (CoI), held into the death of Dr Rodney found that his death was a State killing and that the then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham had to have known about the plot.
The People’s National Congress (PNC), the ruling party at that time, had long been accused of his assassination and has continued to reject any association with the killing. Rodney had actively opposed the PNC and had held mass public meetings which ended in invasions by security units and other groups.
Law enforcement officials up to the highest level of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) distorted and hid evidence related to the killing of historian Dr Walter Rodney, according to the report of the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) that investigated his death.
The CoI had been set up in 2014 by then President Donald Ramotar to determine as far as possible who or what was responsible for the explosion that killed Rodney on June 13, 1980. The CoI had concluded that Rodney was the victim of a State-organised assassination on June 13th, 1980 and this could only have been possible with the knowledge of then PNC Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
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