Deputy Commissioner Karimbaksh faces calls for suspension amid sexual assault allegations
A female police inspector has filed sworn allegations of sexual assault and death threats against Deputy Commissioner Fizal Karimbaksh. Calls grow for his immediate suspension and an independent investigation.
Guyana Police's deputy commissioner accused of assault and threats by fellow officer
A serving female Police Inspector has filed sworn allegations against Deputy Commissioner of Police Fizal Karimbaksh, accusing him of sexual assault on multiple occasions, repeated death threats, and pointing a firearm at her head. Kaieteur News reports that the complainant says the abuse began in 2019 at Karimbaksh's official quarters at Eve Leary, continued during an overseas training assignment in Argentina in 2023, and culminated in an armed confrontation outside the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission in 2024. She states that Karimbaksh told her he would "mark" a bullet with her name if she ever attempted to leave him.
The officer says fear kept her silent for years. When she finally brought the matter to the attention of Home Affairs Minister Oneidge Walrond on September 20, she was transferred from her duty station within seventy-two hours of making the report.
Karimbaksh currently heads the Special Organised Crime Unit and holds one of the most senior ranks in the Guyana Police Force. The allegations describe a pattern of coercive control exercised by a senior officer within the very institution responsible for investigating him — a structural conflict, observers note, not merely a personal one.
Minister Walrond's immediate intervention has drawn public acknowledgment. However, commentators writing to Kaieteur News have cautioned against any hasty response that could compromise the integrity of the investigative process or prematurely influence its outcome, whether judicial or otherwise.
The case has also renewed scrutiny of an earlier incident. In 2021, three female police recruits lodged sexual harassment complaints against Karimbaksh while he was Force Training Officer. An investigation reportedly substantiated those complaints and recommended disciplinary charges, but no further action was taken. Critics argue that if the current matter is handled similarly, the signal sent to women within the Police Force will be clear: rank protects the accused, and speaking out invites retaliation.
Two immediate measures have been put forward as essential by those calling for accountability. The first is that Karimbaksh be relieved of operational command and placed on immediate leave for the duration of the investigation. The second is that his professional and personal firearms be retrieved by the Guyana Police Force without delay. A senior officer accused of pointing a service weapon at a colleague's head and threatening to assign a bullet to her name, the argument goes, should not retain access to firearms while those allegations remain unresolved. Proponents are clear that these steps constitute basic precaution, not predetermined punishment.
Calls have also been made for an independent investigation that includes regional and international investigators, given the inherent difficulty of asking an institution to examine misconduct at its own apex. Without such independence, critics warn, any internal process risks being dismissed as a cover-up.
The case is being widely described as a defining moment for institutional accountability in Guyana. Whether the Police Force's internal machinery can credibly investigate its own Deputy Commissioner — a man who, according to the complainant, used his service weapon as an instrument of terror against a fellow officer — is a question now squarely before the country's authorities.
The women serving in the Guyana Police Force, those calling for action say, deserve assurance that their safety and professional advancement are not determined by the rank of the man who threatens them. The public, equally, deserves confirmation that the law applies to those who enforce it.
Source: Kaieteur News