Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 26, 2014 News
A week after Lieutenant Othneil Hope and recruit Vernon Harding were shot at Tacama, army officials are still to issue a statement on how the incident occurred and whether disciplinary action is being taken.
An initial army statement had suggested that the shooting was accidental. Information from army sources indicate that both ranks were accidentally shot with Lieutenant Harding’s firearm.
However, Harding’s relatives are skeptical about reports that the Lieutenant accidentally shot himself and then accidentally wounded Harding.
Sources within the GDF have told Kaieteur News that both ranks alleged that the shooting took place in a barrack-room. The sources said that it is unusual for a rank to have a loaded weapon in a barrack-room.
Kaieteur News was told that the lieutenant and the recruit have given conflicting statements about how the shooting occurred.
Lieutenant Hope is a training officer on the Tacama base.
This newspaper was told that Harding, the recruit, alleged that Lieutenant Hope had accidentally shot himself in the leg with his own firearm.
According to an army source, Harding alleged that after Lieutenant Hope shot himself, he (Harding) went to the lieutenant’s assistance and the gun again went off accidentally. Harding was shot in the arm and abdomen.
Harding was admitted to the Georgetown Hospital’s High Dependency Unit (HDU), while Lieutenant Hope was being treated at the army’s medical centre at Camp Ayanganna.
Harding’s mother, Vanita Harding, had claimed to have overheard ranks at the GPHC saying that Lieutenant Hope was cleaning his firearm and accidentally shot himself and her son.
Harding has a one-year-old daughter and reportedly enlisted in the army last month. In a statement issued last week Sunday following the shooting, the GDF said that approximately 4:30 p.m. two ranks stationed at the Colonel John Clarke Military School at Tacama were injured when two rounds were accidentally discharged from a firearm.
It stated that the Guyana Defence Force has initiated an investigation and that further details would be released as they are made available. The investigators had still not returned from Tacama up to late yesterday.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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