Hearing of Donald Rodney’s appeal against 1982 conviction continues in March

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 2015 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.