A newly surfaced video of the October 12 nighttime gunfight between National Intelligence head Senior Supt Prem Narine and Opposition Leader Aubrey Mohamed could, if authenticated, shatter the government's account of the encounter in Kitty. That is the central argument of an opinion piece published on November 9 by Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana, which warns that the official narrative is now under severe strain.
The columnist, writing as the footage circulates publicly, argues that Guyanese should withhold final judgment until the video's authenticity is confirmed, given how easily artificial intelligence can fabricate convincing material. Until then, he writes, it is simply a new video, no more. But if its contents hold, the implications reach from the Minister of Home Affairs to the Commissioner of Police to the Attorney General.
What the new video appears to show
According to Demerara Waves, Narine has maintained that he came under attack, feared for his safety, and took appropriate defensive measures. The video, the columnist argues, tells a different story.
Rather than showing a man retreating to a defensive position, the footage appears to show someone waiting in ambush, anticipating a target. The columnist goes further, suggesting a reasonable interpretation is that the man was on hair-trigger alert and ready for a confrontation from his side of the fence.
The video also appears to show no aggressive movement or threatening behavior from the vehicle carrying Mohamed and his companions. That vehicle bears bullet holes, which the columnist says evidences lethal intent from whoever fired at it.
Gaps in the police evidence chain
The opinion piece raises pointed questions about the physical evidence gathered after the shootout. One gun recovered at the scene has been described as questionable. Three occupants of the vehicle were questioned. And the Guyana Forensic Science Laboratory's findings on gunshot residue have introduced fresh complications.
Eugene Thorne, identified as the driver of Mohamed's vehicle on the night of October 12, was reportedly one of two people who tested positive for gunshot residue. The columnist asks whether Thorne could plausibly have fired a weapon while driving and then passed the gun to Mohamed, or whether he simply tested positive from proximity to a discharged firearm. Either way, he writes, these questions demand straight answers.
Then there is the missing ammunition. If a shot was fired from inside Mohamed's moving vehicle, the ejected shell casing would most likely have landed inside it. Guyanese have heard plenty about the gun being quickly found, the columnist notes, but almost nothing about where the bullets ended up. If more than one round was fired from Mohamed's side, where are those projectiles? Did the recovered gun actually connect anyone to anything that happened that night?
The government's reaction raises its own questions
The columnist also takes aim at how the Guyana Police Force and the government responded to the video's release. The immediate focus, he observes, has been on identifying who leaked the footage into the public domain rather than on what the footage shows.
A clean government, he argues, would welcome such a development, if only so that citizens could weigh the full case for or against Mohamed. Instead, he detects an echo of the PPP government's old defense of its conduct during the wave of extrajudicial killings that followed the Mash prison break, when officials insisted that Guyanese should ignore the means and methods and simply count the results.
That precedent, invoked by a liberal commentator wary of state overreach, is pointed. When the machinery of state turns from gathering facts to managing perceptions, he suggests, the public interest is the first casualty.
From skepticism toward Mohamed to a call for scrutiny of Narine
The columnist is candid about his own evolution on the affair. Mohamed has claimed from the first hour that someone attempted to kill him, a claim the columnist initially dismissed as exaggerated. The new video has made him more accommodating of that theory.
He also notes that the call for an independent, preferably international, probe has been on the table since day one. He now wonders what quality and quantity of evidence the government, as keeper of that evidence, would actually present to such a body.
Where he once calculated that Narine's account had traction despite some misgivings, he now concludes that Narine's representations call for the deepest, widest, and most critical scrutiny available.
The bottom line, in the columnist's formulation, is stark: the new video, so long as it is genuine, changes everything, and not positively for those who built the official story.
FAQ
What happened in Kitty on October 12?
A nighttime gunfight occurred between National Intelligence head Senior Supt Prem Narine and Opposition Leader Aubrey Mohamed and his companions, leaving Mohamed's vehicle with bullet holes.
Why does the new video matter?
According to Demerara Waves, the footage appears to contradict Narine's claim that he acted defensively, instead suggesting he was positioned in ambush and showed no sign of aggression from Mohamed's vehicle.
Has the video been authenticated?
No. The columnist stresses that in the age of AI, the footage must be confirmed as authentic before any conclusions are drawn.
Who is calling for an independent investigation?
Opposition figures have called since the first day for an independent, preferably international, probe into the encounter.