Investigators from the Guyana Police Force (GPF) Cold Case Unit are aggressively pursuing two unsolved murders with the aid of the recently acquired testing equipment at the Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory (GFSL).
Crime Chief (ag) Senior Superintendent Michael Kingston on Monday confirmed that focus is being placed on two of the several cold cases at this point.
“We have a few that we are working on but I am not prepared to speak on them at this point in time. We are looking at two at the moment and that is all I would say on it,” he told this publication.
On Wednesday last, new equipment funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was commissioned at the GFSL which is housed at Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown.
The equipment is said to boost in the fight against crime in Guyana since it now enables the lab to conduct critical tests which it was never able to do despite being officially opened some five years now.
Director of the G$1.049 billion facility, Delon France at the recent commissioning ceremony had said that the laboratory is now a national pioneer for human identification using Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) testing and it enables for testing of “three main things: DNA testing for comparison or matching evidence to a suspect, paternity testing, family mapping or family testing where you can use the family DNA to identify a suspect even if we don’t have that particular suspect’s DNA. We can match a crime scene to a family member and then we can narrow it down through investigation of who actually committed the crime”.
When the building was first commissioned, it had four departments including toxicology, documents, trace evidence and chemistry with six non-analytical departments namely security, quality system, information system, facilities operations, evidence and administration departments.
Acknowledging that the wait for such services was indeed a lengthy one, the Director informed that four persons are being trained to use the long-awaited equipment. In addition, a number of training sessions are also on the schedule for crime scene personnel of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).
In April last, the now-suspended Crime Chief, Lyndon Alves, had told this publication that the Guyana Cold Cases Unit was probing five murder cases that have been pending for a number of years.
Alves had explained that these cases were being pursued by both the Cold Cases Unit and the Major Crimes Investigations Unit (MCIU).
The most recent cold case to be solved in Guyana is that of the murder of businessman Ramzan Alli, which occurred at Coldingen Railway Embankment Road, East Coast Demerara (ECD), between July 11 and 12, 2009.
His then wife, Milaimi Alli, was nabbed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) recently for the 2009 murder of the businessman. She appeared at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts to answer to a murder charge.
The charge stated that Alli, while being in the company of another, murdered her husband Ramzan Alli at Coldingen Railway Embankment Road, East Coast Demerara (ECD), between July 11 and 12, 2009.
Investigators reportedly received new information that alleged Alli paid her then lover G$7 million to kill her husband, which led them to reopen their investigation into the murder of the fuel dealer in March 2009.
Thirty-eight-year-old Zaheed Mitchell of Foulis, ECD, was also recently charged for his involvement in the murder of Alli.
