By INEWS

Copyright inewsguyana

Former Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxanne Myers chose to remain silent and refused to answer any questions when the police interviewed her back in 2020 about her about the extent of her involvement in the tabulation of the Region Four votes for the 2020 General and Regional Elections, where the voting results were tampered.

This is according to a recording played to the court on Friday when proceedings in the trial of the election fraud case continued before Magistrate Faith McGusty at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.

The video of Myer’s interrogation was played as part of the testimony of Police Corporal Sheldon Harvey, a crime scene examiner, and videographer, who recorded the video of the police questioning of Myers on October 7, 2020.

In the video, Myers can be seen being asked various questions about her functions as the DCEO, as well as her actions on between March 4 – 12, 2020 following the March 2 elections.

“I exercise my right to remain silent” was Myers only response to the questions being asked.

Myers can be seen being interrogated by Head of Major Crimes Unit Senior Superintendent Mitchell Caesar and another officer. Myers was being questioned in the presence of her Attorney, Nigel Hughes.

Myers was particularly asked about directions and instructions she gave to GECOM staff and others, as well as to what extent she was involved in the handling of the elections data. Myers was asked about the Statement of Polls (SOPs) from which the election results from the various polling stations were being used to tabulate the overall results for the Region. Through it all, Myers remained resolute in her refusal to participate.

However, during Myers interrogation the police also brought in Anneal Giddings, who served as GECOM Information Technology (IT) Manager at the time, but has since taken over Myers former position.

In the recording, Giddings spoke about his interactions with, and instructions he received from, Myers on the 4 – 5 March, 2020.

Giddings recalled being requested by Myers that he hand over a flash drive with the tabulation data for Region Four.

“She instructed that the flash drive be delivered to her and I complied, bearing in mind that would be my only copy of the back up,” Giddings is heard saying.

Giddings also recalled that following a bomb scare threat at the Ashmin’s Building where the Region Four tabulation was being done, he made attempts to safeguard election materials, including Statement of Polls (SOPs) and a server which he removed from the facility. This is notwithstanding Myers instructing him to leave the server in the building.

“Mrs Myers entered the tabulation centre and instructed that I do not remove it [the server]. I disobeyed that instruction and placed the server in my car. Half an hour later instructing me to return the server to the building…However [Myers] said since the server was taken out of the building they would have to terminate the tabulation exercise because the data could have been compromised,” Giddings recounted.

The court was also scheduled to hear further recordings of police interrogations of conducted with former GECOM Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo and former GECOM Staff Sheffern February, however these were objected to by Hughes on the grounds that the suspects were interrogated without the presence of their lawyers. The admissibility of these recordings will be determined following a voir dire hearing.

Myers, Mingo and February are among nine individuals currently facing 19 charges of conspiracy to commit electoral fraud for the events that occurred following the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections (GRE).

Other persons charged include former GECOM Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield, former GECOM employees Enrique Livan, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings, former APNU+AFC Minister, Volda Lawrence, and APNU+AFC Scrutineer, Carol Smith-Joseph.

They are accused of tampering with the March 2 elections results for Region Four in an attempt to inflate the votes for the A Partnership for National Unity/ Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) party, and decreasing the votes for the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC), which had actually won the elections.

The case will continue on Monday.