While maintaining his innocence, Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed said the move by the Guyana Police Force to reopen the ‘Paper Shorts Murder Case’ is politically motivated, as he accused the Irfaan Ali Administration of manipulating the work of the Police to achieve a desired outcome.

In a video statement last evening, Mohamed, who remains under US sanctions, accused the President of directing the Police Force to reopen the investigation into the murder of Ricardo Fagundes called ‘Paper Shorts.’

Fagundes was gunned down after leaving the Palm Court bar back in 2021. The investigation into his murder has been ongoing since then.

“I want to make it unequivocally clear that I have absolutely nothing to do with this crime and I am completely innocent of these malicious and damaging accusations they have leveled against me for years,” Mohamed said in his statement.

Last week, the Police arrested two of Mohamed’s former security guards, who were attached to Mohamed’s Enterprise Security Service when Fagundes was gunned down.

But Mohamed, who was initially accused of being involved in the murder of Fagundes long before he entered politics, said the murder case was reopened after he exposed the President’s mega farm recently.

Noting that he only fears God, Mohamed vowed to expose even more corruption involving the Government.

He said the Government remains fixated on the unsolved murder of Fagundes, while many other murders remain unsolved.

“I welcome the opening of any and all unsolved murder investigations however the problem arises when government officials manipulate the system to get a fixed outcome. One must wonder how many innocent men are sitting in jail or executed because some government official don’t like you or have a problem with you. That is how petty these guys are,” the Opposition Leader said.

He said on Wednesday July 8, one of his former security guards, Mark Richmond, was invited to the Brickdam Police Station, and was later transferred to the Kitty Police Station where he was questioned and detained for more than 72 hours.

 Another one of his former employees was also invited to the station and he too was moved to the Major Crimes Unit.  

According to Mohamed, the Police also arrested an auto dealer last Thursday claiming that the man had sold a car to a former bodyguard of Mohamed who is also facing questions. Although the man provided information and documentation proving he did not sell any car to the person facing questions, he too was arrested and placed in custody.

“Suddenly they have manufactured the information that suggests who sold the unidentifiable car, and have since arrested and detained that man not the person who the vehicle was sold to. This is the level of desperation and wickedness of President Irfaan Ali and his corrupt officers to fabricate total lies against innocent people, hold them in the lockups for days all in an attempt to implicate me in a murder that was already investigated by various agencies including international agencies such as the RSS. The Guyana Police Force even had a detailed press conference with a slideshow which produced no evidence linking anyone to this execution style killing,” the Opposition Leader said.

In August 2022, then police detective Dion Bascom had claimed that there was a major cover-up in the police investigation into the murder of Fagundes.

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