Imam re-committed to stand trial on multiple child rape charges

One year after the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) issued orders to re-open the case involving Muslim scholar Nezaam Ali, who is accused of sexually abusing nine minor boys, the defendant was on Thursday recommitted to stand trial in the High Court for his alleged crimes. This comes five years after the alleged abuser was committed to stand trial for multiple charges.
Thursday’s decision was handed down at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court by

East Demerara Magistrate Alex Moore who recommitted Ali the stand trial at the next practicable sitting of the Demerara Assizes. In early 2017, documents were discovered missing in the rape case, but then Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum had told the press in March of last year that the Police would have reinstituted multiple charges.
After the documents vanished during the first Preliminary Inquiry (PI), the DPP took note and looked into the matter. In a letter dated February 13, 2017, Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack remitted the matter to Magistrate Moore to re-open the paper committals. On that same date, the DPP had also issued a directive to the Guyana Police Force to obtain certified copies of the original documents before the re-opening of the paper committals which was carried out in May.
The mother of three of the alleged rape victims had told sections of the media that persons have been taking photographs of her sons and she regarded this act as bullying. The parents and relatives of some of the alleged victims had publicly expressed their frustration at the situation, with one even claiming that there has been a deliberate attempt to drag out the matter.
Ali was charged in 2012 with raping nine boys between December 2011 and January 2012, and was committed to stand trial the following year. Shortly after the committal, his lawyer, Nigel Hughes, had filed in the High Court an action to have the committal overturned. This was rejected by the court and it was ruled that the committal would remain.
The mother of three of the boys and an official from the Child Care and Protection Agency (CC&PA) discovered in January 2017 that the birth certificates and medicals for the boys had gone missing from each of the nine files. A group of child rights advocates in the aftermath called for an investigation into the disappearance of the documents from the case files. It was reported that the DPP had forwarded a position report on the matter to Social Protection Minister Amna Ali.