Guyanese cops on murder charge

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Two cops on the Guyana Police Force have been charged with the murder of 18-year-old University of Guyana student, Yohance Douglas.

Officers Mahendra Baijnauth and Gerald Alonzo were not required to plead when they appeared before Chief Magistrate Juliet Holder on Friday. They are due to reappear in court on April 1 for the preliminary trial.

Douglas, whose March 1 death sparked strong protests and demands for justice, was shot when a police anti-crime patrol in the city intercepted a motor vehicle in which he and other students were travelling on their way home.

The police had claimed that they had intercepted the vehicle on the basis of reports that gunmen from an East Coast village were in the car and they were in the process of apprehending them.

Another student in the car, Ronson Grey, was shot in the jaw and Baijnauth is facing an additional charge of discharging a loaded firearm with intent to murder him.

Murder/suicide

over HIV test

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad — A Trinidadian man killed his lover and then shot himself to death after being told that he had tested positive for HIV.

Norman Doorgadeen Parris murdered his girlfriend, Christine Knights, with three bullets, shot twice to the head and once to the abdomen, telling her “you give me AIDS”.

He then turned his gun on himself, firing two bullets to his head. The tragedy occurred Friday inside an agricultural supply shop located in a mall where Knights owned and operated a hair dressing salon.

The Express newspaper reported that it was the second such tragedy in South Trinidad last week. On Tuesday, a machinist, Martin Rajpaul, employed by Petrotrin, chopped his wife to death and set the family’s home afire before hanging himself, after telling his priest and friends that he had marital and financial problems.

Knights lived with her parents and seven year-old son. Her lover and killer, Parris, was the father of five and lived with a son in a rented apartment.

He was a well-known activist of the governing People’s National Movement. Parris and Knight have been involved in a relationship for the past two years.

Guyana’s biggest ever budget

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — The Guyana Government has placed a major focus on developing the country’s infrastructure by devoting almost one-third of the country’s biggest ever budget of just over G$70 billion (G$187=US$1) to financing roads, sea defences, electricity and other projects.

The G$72.9 billion budget — an increase of some 15.9 per cent over 2002 — was presented Friday by Finance Minister Saisnarine Kowlessar under the central theme ‘Confronting challenges: Staying on course for a prosperous Guyana’.

Opposition members of Parliament of the People’s National Congress/Reform, who have been boycotting the Parliament since last year, joined their supporters in a rowdy protest outside the Ocean View Convention Centre which is being used temporarily for sittings while the Parliament chamber at the Public Building is undergoing repairs.

Speaker Ralph Ramkarran, deplored as “disgraceful and disrespectful” the behaviour of the MPs and their supporters, and also chided the police for “dereliction of duty” as he suspended the session for almost 45 minutes before the finance minister resumed his presentation.

Social services, including education, health and housing, have been allocated more than G$11 billion in the budget with another $7.2 billion being devoted to national security with provisions for enhancing the resources and capabilities of the Guyana Police Force.