Dataram situation should have been avoided – President Granger

…urges law enforcement to locate, transport him back 

Days before the ruling on a drug trafficking charge against him, Barry Dataram had fled the jurisdiction, a situation President David Granger believes would not have existed had the local justice system been more alert.

During the taping of this week’s “The Public Interest” programme on Thursday, the Head of State posited that while he would not lay blame at the feet of any agency or individual, Dataram’s flight from Guyana was something which could have been avoided.

“Mr Dataram is a person of interest. He is a well-known character in Guyana, and I would expect that even though the judicial branch is separate, there should be a greater level of alertness on the part of the magistracy, in the judiciary, in matters like this and I don’t regard it as a failing on the part of law enforcement agencies, but it is definitely an error which ought to have been avoided,” he told reporters when prompted to comment on the matter.

Nevertheless, President Granger is calling on local law enforcement agencies to work with their counterparts in neighbouring countries and use every possible legitimate avenue available to them to locate the convicted drug lord and have him transported back to Guyana.

“The danger posed in having somebody who is now a convict out there, out of the jurisdiction is going to be harmful to our national interest, so I would urge the law enforcement agencies to alert their counterparts in neighbouring states… I would urge all law enforcement agencies to use every legitimate measure to bring him back into this jurisdiction so that he can serve his sentence,” the President stated.

Furthermore, the President told reporters on the weekly programme that information suggested that Dataram might have absconded using a passport not issued by the Government of Guyana.

“Even though Mr Dataram might have a foreign passport, it might be a forged passport… my information is that he is not travelling on a Guyanese passport. So, after his disappearance, and we weren’t aware of his disappearance, we continued to work with our partners in the Caribbean to bring him to justice. If he is in Suriname as is suspected, the Commissioner of Police has been instructed to try to ascertain his whereabouts in neighbouring countries, but he is not using a Guyana passport – that much we know,” the Head of State further revealed.

Dataram and his reputed wife, Anjanie Boodnarine, along with two others, Komal Charran and Trevor Gouveia, were charged jointly with the possession of narcotics for the purpose of trafficking.

However, days before the court’s ruling, Dataram and his  spouse,  who was previously granted High Court bail,  fled the country. After the couple failed to attend court on the previous scheduled days of sentencing (September 20 and September 23, 2016), the presiding Magistrate Judy Lactchman issued arrest warrants for them and noted that she would proceed with her ruling in their absence.

As such, on Tuesday last, Dataram was sentenced to 60 months in jail and a fine of $164.2 million after he was found guilty in absentia of possession of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking.

Meanwhile, his three co-accused, including his reputed wife, were all freed of the joint charge, which stated that on April 16, 2015, at Fourth Avenue, Diamond, East Bank Demerara, they had 60.840 kilograms of cocaine in their possession for the purpose of trafficking.