From Hero to Collateral Damage: Facts Must Outlast Political Loyalty

 From Hero to Collateral Damage: Facts Must Outlast Political Loyalty

OPINION BY :Hem Kumar October 2026

Social media has become a courtroom without rules of evidence.

Both men were denied bail and remanded until November 24 over allegations involving the unauthorized acquisition and disclosure of surveillance footage and an alleged G$800,000 transaction. Those allegations have not been proved. Neither man should be convicted—or acquitted—by public enthusiasm.

But the public arguments surrounding this case deserve examination.

What a video shows and how it was obtained are different questions

One argument circulating around Greene’s defense is that the importance of the footage validates its disclosure.

The actual legal submission, as reported, is more specific. The application filed through attorney Darren Wade argues that the footage was material to pending criminal proceedings, that the State was obliged to disclose it to the accused, and that Greene would have had lawful justification or excuse for disclosing it. The application also disputes the use of national security to shield evidence of alleged misconduct.

Those are arguments the court must consider. They are not findings the public can simply announce as fact.

There are separate questions here:

♦What does the footage establish about the shooting incident?

♦Was an offence committed in accessing, copying or disclosing it?

♦Was there lawful authority, justification or another applicable defense?

♦ What evidence supports the alleged payment, and what was its purpose?

The answer to the first question does not automatically settle the others.

If footage supports a defendant’s account, that may be highly significant to the underlying proceedings. It does not, without further legal analysis, establish that every method of obtaining it was permissible.

Equally, calling a disclosure “unauthorized” does not relieve the prosecution of proving the elements of the offence charged.

The proper demand is straightforward: examine the footage, examine the alleged conduct, and apply the relevant law to each. Do not use one disputed issue to erase another.

Evidence of possible police misconduct must not be brushed aside. Neither should its possible existence become a blanket answer to allegations about how evidence was acquired.

Bail is not punishment—but attendance is not the whole test

V-PAC’s statement begins with a sound principle: denying bail must not become a means of punishing someone before conviction.

That principle deserves support.

But its argument becomes incomplete when it concentrates on Mohamed’s reported attendance at court and asks what has changed to make the magistrate believe he will not appear.

Guyana’s Bail Act permits consideration of risks beyond non-attendance, including further offending, interference with witnesses, evidence tampering and obstruction of justice. A response to a concern about further offending therefore cannot consist solely of saying that someone has always attended court.

That does not establish that the magistrate was right to refuse bail. It establishes that the public debate must address the actual legal questions.

The Act requires written reasons for bail decisions and provides a route to challenge refusal. Those reasons—not partisan summaries—should anchor the assessment of this ruling.

“To the best of our knowledge” is not verification

V-PAC says that, “to the best of its knowledge,” Mohamed has complied with every bail condition. It then points to his attendance at court and station reporting.

The qualification matters.

A statement of what an organization knows is not a judicial determination of complete compliance. Nor does attendance establish compliance with every other condition.

We should be equally disciplined in the opposite direction: no one should invent a breach or present suspicion as proof.

The standard must work both ways. Assertions of wrongdoing require evidence. Assertions of complete compliance should not be treated as independently verified merely because they support a preferred political position.

Constitutional office does not confer superior liberty

The office of Leader of the Opposition deserves respect. Its holder deserves due process.

But invoking that office is not an answer to a bail assessment. Political prominence should neither count against a defendant nor entitle him to preferential treatment.

If the objection is that pretrial detention must not be punitive, the principle must extend to the police constable as firmly as it extends to the opposition leader.

The strongest argument is not that Mohamed is too important to be detained. It is that any deprivation of liberty must be justified according to law.

That argument does not need a political title to give it force.

An adverse ruling is not proof of partiality

V-PAC also demands that Magistrate Abigail Gibbs recuse herself from matters involving the Mohamed family.

That demand requires more than disagreement with her decision.

The statement supplied does not identify a separate conflict, relationship or prejudicial statement substantiating its suggestion of partiality. It asks the public to make a serious inference largely from an outcome it disputes.

There is also a recent case that complicates any easy narrative of political favoritism.

The same magistrate convicted National Border Patrol Director Daniel Seeram of assaulting his former wife and remanded him pending sentencing. Seeram had publicly endorsed the PPP/C. The High Court subsequently upheld his remand.

An essential distinction must be preserved: Seeram had been convicted; Mohamed has not. Their cases are not interchangeable, and Seeram’s detention does not establish that Mohamed’s bail refusal was correct.

But the comparison is relevant to the political accusation.

Anyone suggesting that Gibbs’s decisions reflect partisan preference must engage with this record rather than construct an argument around one unfavorable ruling.

Her decision can be questioned. Its reasoning can be challenged. Neither exercise requires the public to accept an unsubstantiated allegation of bias.

And where does that leave Ryan Greene?

Amid the arguments about office, influence and political persecution stands a young constable whose future is also at stake.

In the V-PAC statement under discussion, Mohamed’s position and liberty receive sustained attention. Greene is not mentioned.

That omission is troubling alongside the account of a circulating video in which Greene’s father seeks answers from Hana Mohamed and reportedly hears his son described as “collateral damage.”

The exact words and full context was  verified with video evidence circulating and is  treated as established and  accurate, however, the phrase deserves a public explanation.

A worried father is not asking about an abstraction. He is asking about his son.

“From hero to collateral damage” is not a factual finding about Greene’s motives, what anyone promised him, or whether anyone deceived him. It is a warning about the risks of political loyalty: a person may feel useful to a cause without knowing whether that cause will show the same concern when consequences arrive.

That is not an excuse for unlawful conduct. It is an insistence on human dignity.

Principles must survive inconvenient facts

The public should reject the false choices being offered:

♦It is possible to demand scrutiny of police conduct while insisting that allegations about the acquisition of surveillance footage be properly examined.

♦ It is possible to defend Mohamed’s right to due process without treating his office as a claim to preferential treatment.

♦It is possible to question a magistrate’s reasoning without declaring her politically compromised.  

♦ And it is possible to insist that Greene answer any charge proved against him while refusing to regard him as disposable.

A defense submission is not a verdict. A remand order is not a conviction. A political statement is not evidence. Public awareness begins when we stop confusing them.