Police to recommend criminal charges against Lowenfield – Crime Chief

Attempts to rig elections

…file to be sent to DPP for legal advice

As detectives continue their probe into allegations of electoral fraud following the March 2, 2020 National and Regional Elections, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) will be recommending that additional criminal charges be instituted against Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield.

This was according to Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum, who told Guyana Times on Monday that investigators are expected to wrap up their investigations shortly and once completed; the file will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shalimar Ali-Hack with its recommendations for legal advice.
Blanhum related that the police have sufficient evidence at its disposal to warrant the institution of criminal charges against the CEO.
However, he further stated that as expected, the CEO, who was placed on substantial bail, reported to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Monday where he was further grilled on the allegation brought against him.

The Guyana Police Force is currently conducting a probe after “formal reports” were received alleging “criminal conduct” by Lowenfield and embattled Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, as well as others, in relation to the elections and the events that followed thereafter.
The CEO is accused of attempting to undermine the will of the people by repeatedly refusing to submit the verified results from the National Recount to Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Retired Justice Claudette Singh, for a final declaration. The police have since arrested and charged several GECOM staff including RO Mingo as part of its probe.
On the other hand, the recount exercise had shown that the PPP/C won the elections with 233,336 votes, that is, over 15,000 more than the 217,920 votes obtained by the coalition. But Lowenfield had repeatedly refused to submit his final elections report with those figures despite being so directed by the GECOM Chair on several occasions. He eventually complied, paving the way for the declaration and subsequent swearing-in of the new Government.
The National Recount conducted unearthed that RO Mingo had heavily inflated the figures in Region Four – Guyana’s largest voting district – in favour of the APNU/AFC.

Nevertheless, almost one month after the declaration was made based on the figures from the National Recount, the APNU/AFC coalition filed two election petitions in the High Court, challenging the protracted elections results and are currently awaiting a date for the hearing.
This is despite several blatant attempts to alter the outcome of the elections in favour of the then coalition Government.
Meanwhile, in addition to the charges that will be instituted by the State against Lowenfield, he is already facing three private criminal charges for conspiracy to commit fraud and breach of trust in public office that were filed by private citizens Desmond Morian and Josh Kanhai, who is a member of The New Movement (TNM) party. The CEO was arraigned back in July and placed on $450,000 bail.

These matters last came up in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts on September 11, when they were adjourned to October for the commencement of trial. This was after the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) failed to show up in court to determine how the matter will proceed.
Attorney Hughes had previously requested the DPP to review the charges against his client and as a consequence, the prosecution team had to hand over the documents to the Chamber.
But during a hearing last month, it was indicated to the court that the private criminal charges could possibly be taken over by the DPP Chamber in light of the police probe. Hence, the matter was adjourned to September 11 pending the decision from the DPP Chamber.
However, on that day, there was no representative from the DPP Chamber to indicate whether a decision was taken. As such, the presiding Magistrate, Faith McGusty, set dates for the commencement of trial, starting on October 26 for Morian’s charges and October 27 for the charge brought by Kanhai.