Collateral damage: two words that cannot be walked back

Dear Editor,
In my last letter, I asked readers to remember two words: “collateral damage”. Hana Mohamed has now given us every reason to. Asked by the media today to explain what she meant when she used those words about Constable Ryan Greene and his family, she first denied saying them. The video says otherwise. She then offered a new version: what she really meant, she said, is that everyone will become collateral damage in the Government’s pursuit of her brother, the Leader of the Opposition. A denial followed by a reinterpretation is not a clarification. It is damage control. And the new version, read carefully, is not a retreat. It is a confession.
Start with the denial. The remark was made to the face of a family whose son sits on remand and whose mother had been detained, and it was recorded. Ms Mohamed’s word against a recording would be a weak hand at the best of times, and her record this year makes it weaker. In February, Glenn Hanoman, counsel for the requesting state, described her Facebook claims of a “bombshell revelation” in the extradition hearing as “entirely false, misleading, and without factual foundation”. In April, the Supreme Court of Judicature itself had to correct a post of hers that named the judiciary’s own research counsel as members of a state legal team. In September, the Chief Magistrate warned her, in open court, to stop posting about the proceedings after a key witness said he feared for his family’s safety. When a prosecutor, a court, and a Magistrate have all had to correct your version of events in the same year, the public is entitled to believe the video.
Now the clarification. Its premise is that the Government is pursuing her brother. It is not. The law is, and on several fronts, none of them were invented in Georgetown. In June 2024, the United States Treasury sanctioned Azruddin Mohamed and his father for public corruption, alleging that their company omitted more than 10,000 kilograms of gold from its declarations and avoided more than US$50 million in duties owed to the people of Guyana. A federal grand jury in Florida has since indicted both men on 11 counts, including wire fraud and money laundering, and the US has requested their extradition. At home, he and two staff members face firearm charges and a charge of attempting to obstruct the course of justice arising from the October 12 incident outside the home of Senior Superintendent Prem Narine, the key witness against him. On October 30, he was jointly charged with the Constable under the Cybercrime Act and remanded by a Magistrate applying the Bail Act. Every one of these matters arises from conduct alleged against him, brought by law enforcement and placed before a court. None of them is a Government press release.
So consider who the “everyone” in her revised sentence actually is. A 20-year-old Constable, remanded to prison on the same charge as her brother. His mother, Nikita Greene, detained until the High Court ordered her release. His father, Randy Greene, left to file habeas corpus proceedings on his own. Two of Mr Mohamed’s employees were charged alongside him. A company that bears a family member’s name, designated by the US Treasury. And, by Nazar Mohamed’s own public account in March 2025, people connected to the Administration lost their US visas because of their association with him. Collateral damage implies a strike. In every one of these cases, the strike came from inside the Mohamed camp, not from the state.
Strip the new version of its packaging, and the meaning is plainer than the original. If he goes down, everyone goes down with him. That was always the message. The Constable was simply the first name on the list. The party, its supporters, his staff, the Office of Leader of the Opposition, the reputation of the Magistracy and, last week, even a state reception for a visiting Monarch have all been drafted into one man’s defence. That is not the language of a political leader. It is the logic of someone holding the room hostage.
Why would anyone think this way? The answer is entitlement, and it predates WIN. When the sanctions landed in June 2024, the family expected the Government to stand between them and Washington. It could not, and it should not have. Guyana’s banks depend on correspondent relationships with United States institutions. Its oil economy earns and settles in US dollars. Its security partnership with the US is no small matter with Venezuela at the border. No responsible Government would put every depositor, importer, remitter, and public servant at risk to shield one family’s fortune from the US Treasury. The Government cut its ties and put the country first. By March 2025, Nazar Mohamed was on Facebook declaring, “The Constitution protects me,” complaining about denied vessel approvals and withheld mining permits, and hinting at legal action. The grievance born in that moment is the grievance driving the Opposition today. If the state would not protect them, the state would be made to pay. A political party was the instrument.
None of this is new. It is a familiar pattern among the very wealthy whose fortunes, on the allegations of the authorities, were built in the shadow of the rules. Money is mistaken for immunity. Philanthropy becomes a shield. Accountability is rebranded as persecution. And the people around them, staff, supporters, and a young policeman with a career ahead of him, become expendable the moment the law comes knocking. Real leaders absorb the cost to protect others. Here, others are made to absorb the cost to protect the leader. If Constable Greene did nothing wrong, the Mohamed camp should have been the first to stand beside him. Instead, Mr Mohamed’s attorney said his client “does not know this young man,” and his sister called him collateral damage.
The presumption of innocence stands, and the courts will settle the criminal questions. But words spoken in public belong to the public, and no amount of reinterpretation can unsay them. Ms Mohamed did not misspeak. She told a family fighting for its son the truth about how her household sees everyone outside it. Today’s “clarification” only widened the circle. Guyanese should take her at her word, both versions of it.

Yours faithfully,
Concerned citizen