GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - Police will be asked to protect sensitive witnesses providing testimony and evidence to an investigative commission looking into allegations of a government-sponsored death squad, the commission's chairman said yesterday.
The three-member commission, headed by Appeals Court Judge Ian Chang, is expected to begin hearings within a month and is accepting written evidence in the meantime.It will focus on accusations by opposition leaders and human rights groups that the alleged death squad was responsible for some 40 killings and dozens of kidnappings in the past two years.
Guyana, a South American country of 700,000 residents, does not have a formal witness protection programme. The debate over the need for one heightened following the June 24th assassination of George Bacchus, a businessman who first brought forward the accusations of a death squad in January.
The day before Bacchus' killing, a magistrate quit a murder case linked to the death squad, citing death threats.
