Midnight Search Raises Fresh Questions Over Treatment of Opposition

A midnight police operation at the home of a supporter of Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed has added a new and increasingly tense episode to the confrontation between the opposition politician and state authorities.

The operation, which occurred shortly after midnight on September 12, was captured on video as Mohamed arrived at the residence, where the supporter lives with his parents, after two members of his staff had reportedly been handcuffed and placed inside a police vehicle.

In the recording, Mohamed repeatedly questioned police about the detention of the men and the authority for the search. No response from the officers to his questions is heard in the recording.

“So now it’s 12:30 a.m. This is what the police they’re doing to the staff of the leader of the opposition. What is the reason they have you in here? What is the reason that—where are they carrying you guys?”

One of the handcuffed men responded that they were being taken to the Timehri Police Station. Mohamed immediately challenged an officer over the reason for the detention.

“So officer, what is the reason these guys here? What is the reason they got these guys arrested, these guys handcuffed these guys, put them at the back of the vehicle?”

Again, no response is heard.

Questions Over Search

Mohamed also questioned the decision to search the residence, repeatedly asking police to identify their authority.

“They not tell us anything. They just say they want to search. They address and that’s it. Nobody telling you go by hand. We get no chance to get a phone. They want to search you, please? No warrants. No warrants.”

The video does not show police producing a warrant or explaining the legal basis for the search. The police have not, in the material reviewed for this report, publicly explained the circumstances or legal authority surrounding the operation.

Mohamed also warned the occupants to pay close attention to the search.

“Just make sure, watch them, because they might drop something in the middle of it.”

He questioned what police expected to find.

“What you expect to find here?”

The confrontation comes just days after Mohamed and several associates were detained in connection with a police investigation into alleged unauthorised drone activity near President Irfaan Ali’s private residence at Leonora.

Police said a DJI drone and cellular phones were found during that September 3 operation. Mohamed has denied wrongdoing and said the drone did not belong to him.

The matter has already moved into the courts. On September 7, Mohamed’s video editor, Dwayne Ross, was charged with three offences relating to the alleged unauthorised operation of a drone. Ross pleaded not guilty.

A Wider Political Confrontation

The latest police action also follows the disappearance of the Team Mohamed Facebook page, which had more than 500,000 followers, while Mohamed’s phones were in police custody following the September 3 investigation. His lawyer subsequently raised concerns about the circumstances surrounding the page’s disappearance.

Mohamed has emerged as one of the government’s most vocal political critics since becoming Leader of the Opposition. His confrontation with the administration has increasingly extended beyond political debate into police investigations, court proceedings and disputes over his ability to communicate with supporters.

At the residence, Mohamed accused police of focusing their resources on his supporters rather than crime.

“When we need the police officers to curb crime and theft, they’re not there. But they’re here to harass innocent people, to harass them.”

He went further:

“This is the dictatorship we gotta face in this country.”

The latest incident has yet to produce a public explanation from police concerning the reason for the search, the detention of the two men or what investigators were seeking.

That silence leaves a central question hanging over the midnight operation: What prompted police to enter the home of a political supporter’s family in the early hours of the morning, and under what legal authority was the search conducted?

With the September 3 drone investigation still unfolding, the latest operation risks further intensifying an already extraordinary confrontation between Guyana’s constitutional Opposition Leader and the institutions of the State.