Guyanese minister accused of rape resigns

The senior cabinet minister at the center of accusations that he had raped and sodomized at under-aged indigenous girl last December has resigned his ministerial position just hours after the state prosecutor’s office said it would not bring charges against him.

Nigel Dharamlall, who had been serving as local and regional development minister since mid-2020, announced late Monday that he had tendered his resignation to President Irfaan Ali to avoid embarrassing the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government, in office since winning general elections almost three years ago.

Dharamlall, in his early 50s, had been under tremendous pressure in recent weeks ever since the now 16-year-old from the western Essequibo region went public with allegations that he had groomed her, given her lavish gifts and eventually raped and sodomized her at his private residence in eastern Georgetown seven months ago. He had denied the charges.

His resignation came hours after the director of public prosecutions said she had no legal basis to proceed with charges stemming from the damning and very detailed allegations against the minister because the virtual complainant had opted to withdraw her accusations.

She had been in the care of the state’s child care protection agency in recent weeks even as police had grilled her over and over, looking for loopholes in her statement. At least two NGO’s which had been working with the high school student had reported that she had not changed her statement nor had she altered the details of the allegations as they bemoaned what they said was a systematic pressure campaign by various arms of the state to make her wilt and withdraw the charges. Red Thread and the umbrella Amerindian People’s Association (APA) said in a statement that they were not surprised at the latest developments as the signals that the system was against the victim to achieve a particular outcome were clear for all to see.

“Since the allegations were made public, we have been appalled by reports of police intimidation of the child’s family; of an attempted bribe made to the family of the complainant; of the denial of legal counsel for the child; of the lack of impartial support for the child once she came into the custody of the state; of the child being taken to the crime scene and that Dharmalall was on the premises; and the back and forth of the case file between the Police and the prosecutor’s office. We are fearful that these allegations will not be fully investigated, and that the Indigenous child will be left to bear the trauma of not only the alleged vicious assault on her body, but also that of the brutal handling of this case by Guyana’s criminal justice system. Like many Indigenous women, girls and boys within Guyana, her body was and is vulnerable to racial abuse and sexualizing, which we cannot ignore, as it placed her at risk in the first place,” the groups said.

And speaking from the CARICOM summit in Trinidad, President Ali said that Dharamlall had advised him of his plans to “tender his resignation as the interest of the government is important to him and he will not want anyone to bring the government into disrepute. He has as also advised that these allegations have affected him personally and as such, he has offered to resign as minister and as a member of parliament.” Ali did not make any comments on the child.

This is not the first time that similar allegations had been made against Dharamlall and even as he denies any such insinuations, several other indigenous females from various interior regions have come forth accusing other top government officials of similar abuses.

In her statement to at least two NGOs, the girl accused her parents of betraying her trust by allegedly accepting $50,000 from Dharamlall as “they try to settle the matter because he give them (G$10 million dollars), which he say that he don’t know if he will ever compensate for the hurt he give but all that he could do is that, that is what he said. Most of the time my dad and him had transactions, it was two times. My dad collected G$5 million at Lake Capoey on the 15 June 2023 and G$5 million was collected on the 16 June 2023. I had exams that day. I know they were supposed to meet but I don’t know where they met but what I do know is that after my exams was finished, we went, and he collected us and took us to the police station,” she said.