Latest update December 9th, 2024 12:53 AM
Sep 29, 2009 News
President Bharrat Jagdeo should now be in possession of the now infamous ‘sex tape’ recording between an adult identified as Kwame and a 15-year-old boy identified as Julius.
Jagdeo returned to Guyana yesterday after meetings at the United Nations and said he will “look into” the matter which implicates a senior functionary within his Presidential Secretariat soliciting sex from the minor identified as Julius.
Activist Mark Benschop sealed a copy of the recording in an envelope, addressed it to ‘His Excellency President Bharrat Jagdeo’ and dropped it off at the security desk at the Office of the President yesterday.
Benschop told media operatives that he decided to give the President a copy of the recording, since the President had stated that he had not heard it.
“I have heard the president say that he did not get a chance to listen to the tape so I brought a personal copy for His Excellency of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo.”
In commenting on the silence of religious organisations, civil groups and the Human Services Ministry for not condemning Kwame since the release of the tape recording, Benschop said this is a clear indication that President Jagdeo controls and micro manages everything.
“The Human Services Minister, Priya Manickchand, should have issued a statement immediately after the release of the tape,” Benschop said.
Taking into consideration the history that Benschop has had with the Office of the President, he related that the security guards were very polite to him yesterday and did not give him a difficult time to enter the compound.
“I want the President to listen to the tape and stop the kind of silence that we have been having for the past week now. The authenticity of the tape should not be the question…the content should be the question and President Jagdeo should do the honourable thing and suspend Mr. Kwame McCoy with immediate effect, whilst they try to verify what really transpired,” Benschop told the media.
He explained that for President Jagdeo to continue having McCoy in the Office of the President is disrespectful not only to that office or to the Rights of the Child Commission, but also to the citizens of Guyana.
Following reports that the victim, Julius, has gone missing, Benschop said this is not the case, but added that the victim and his mother have been threatened.
“This is real…I am saying that I, Mark Benschop, was privy to conversations with the family, thus, the recording of the tape. It is authentic. I am willing to take a lie detector test.”
Benschop explained that many senior government officials are confident that it is the voice of Kwame McCoy on the tape.
Speaking with reporters just after his arrival in Guyana, Jagdeo indicated he was not yet ready to ask the official, identified on the tape as “Kwame” to step down from his position while he gets to the bottom of the matter.
“At some point in time, you’d be hearing from me on the matter,” Jagdeo said.
“Once I get briefed, then I will make a determination on the matter,” the President said when asked if the individual identified as “Kwame” on the tape would be asked to set aside from his duties while he looks into the matter.
The mother of the boy has said she is upset that the President has sexual predators working at Office of the President.
This newspaper had visited the home of the young man’s mother, who telephoned her son who identified himself as Julius.
“I think the President should look into who he putting into position…He can’t be picking (sexual) predators…Look me child is a prey to he…I really, really mad about this.”
The boy, born August, 18, 1994, in a phone conversation with his mother, which was recorded, said he met the government official – identified as “Kwame” on the tape – at the Guyana International Conference Centre and he had told him that he wanted to open a youth group in Linden. He said that he collected the official’s phone number and from then they started conversations.
The boy told his mother that at one time he had told the Office of the President official that he was travelling to Georgetown and that he would be staying by his aunt, but the official told him he could stay at a city hotel, which was named.
The young man stated that he called the official at his office in the Presidential Complex and when his mother asked how he knew which number to call the youth said that the official had called him from it several times before.
The youth told his mother that the Office of the President official told him that having sex with a man was no different from having sex with a woman.
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