Minister of Home Affairs, Oneidge Walrond, has categorically rejected Red Thread’s claim that she ordered the complainant in the Deputy Commissioner Fizal Karimbaksh investigation to be confronted by the accused, branding the organisation’s account of her remarks false.
In a strongly worded statement on Monday, October 5, the minister said she gave no such instruction and stated that Red Thread is manufacturing a position to attack the government.
“Red Thread’s attempt to convert my remarks into an instruction to violate the rights of a complainant is therefore false,” Minister Walrond declared.
She made it clear that she never mandated a confrontation, nor directed investigators to subject the complainant to any procedure contrary to the Sexual Offences Act. Her earlier comments, she said, simply relayed information provided to her on the investigative process.
“I neither design nor direct the day-to-day investigative procedures of the Guyana Police Force,” she stated.
The minister also took aim at what she called Red Thread’s selective outrage, saying the group is quick to emerge with sweeping condemnation of the PPP/C Government before establishing the facts, yet stays silent on other matters of national concern.
“Selective advocacy, however, does not entitle anyone to manufacture a position and then condemn the Government for holding it,” she said.
Minister Walrond noted that Red Thread conveniently ignored her public call for Karimbaksh to be sent on administrative leave pending the investigation, a position she said “could hardly be clearer.”
She was firm that both the complainant and the accused will have their legal rights protected, and that investigators are expected to uphold them.
“This government will not be lectured into abandoning either the rights of a complainant or the fundamental requirements of due process. No political organisation, advocacy group, commentator or public official gets to rewrite those legal protections“, the minister said.
Describing the matter as a serious criminal allegation against a senior member of the Guyana Police Force, the minister said it demands a serious investigation, “not political theatre, manufactured controversy or trial by public commentary.”
“Let the investigators investigate. Let the evidence determine the outcome. And let the law take its course,” she made clear.