A Venezuelan national charged with a terrorist bombing of a Georgetown, Guyana city petrol station last year, now wants to change his plea and admit to trying to wipe out the downtown facility on behalf of unknown bosses.
Daniel Alexander Ramirez Poedemo’s case was called before a magistrate’s court this week and, instead preparing to advance the hearings, his attorney Shellon Boyce informed the court that he wants to admit to everything, even saying that he had acted alone.
Ramirez Poedemo, 33, was charged with planting a bomb at the Mobile filling station last October in what police had described as a terrorist bombing with suspected links to private militia groups in neighboring Venezuela. Tensions between the two countries have risen exponentially in the past decade as Venezuela has ramped up its decades-old claim to around two-thirds of Guyana’s territory. The case is before the World Court in The Netherlands for a once and for all settlement. Guyanese authorities have complained to the court about militiamen firing on Guyanese border soldiers, injuring several in skirmishes in the past two years.
When the case was called for possible comital to the high court on Monday, Attorney Boyce stunned the courtroom by saying that her client wants the court to know that he had acted alone in planting the bomb and that several other suspects police have charged have had nothing to do with the case.
The late Sunday afternoon explosion, heard miles away in several districts, claimed the life of six-year-old Soraya Bourne injured several others.
State prosecutors say that they will now work to determine how the case will proceed as he is charged with murder, terrorism and other felony acts which can land him in prison for life. The case is regarded as the most serious in recent memory. The defendant is 33.
