Update: Georgetown prison burnt; prisoners being shuttled away; shots ring out as night falls

10 Jul 2017

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Five prisoners said to be on the run

-warden killed during revolved Five prisoners are believed to be on the run today after a fiery uprising flattened the Camp Street jail yesterday claiming the life of a prison warden, Wain Wickham, and injuring at least six others.

(DPI/GINA photo)

The mastermind of the elaborate plot which convulsed the city and sowed fear is Mark Royden Williams who was sentenced to death in February this year over the Bartica massacre of 2008 where 12 men were killed. Another of the suspected escapees is Uree Varswyk who was last week committed to stand trial for murder.

Yesterday’s hair-raising breakout had echoes of the 2002 Camp Street jailbreak which saw the escape of five dangerous men who triggered the worst crime spree in the country’s history. The uprising also came after another in March 2016 when 17 prisoners were immolated in the blaze that was set. These two major disasters in the security sector will raise doubts that the Granger administration and its Minister of Public Security are up to the task. Granger, a former army brigadier is seen to be an expert on security matters, and had frequently pilloried the former PPP/C administration for its failures in the security sector.

The March 3rd 2016 uprising had led to a lengthy Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to ensure no recurrence at the prisons and questions were being asked yesterday about why the government had been unable to prevent a repeat.

While some of the recommendations of the CoI were implemented, funding has been the major impediment for the others, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan said last night at a press conference.

“There is a lack of monies for these investments…It is $6B to construct a new prison and that will take about three years,” Ramjattan told a press conference at NCN, following the inferno at the country’s main penitentiary.

The minister’s assertion of a funds shortage will continue to attract skepticism as critics have continually pointed to the more than billion-dollar expenditure on the controversial D’Urban Park soon after the administration took office in May 2015.

Ramjattan stated that measures have been put in place to ensure the recapture of the five prisoners believed to be on the run while the focus now is on putting the over 1000 prisoners from Camp Street in a secure but humane place.

He said that government was undertaking a “situational assessment” to make comfortable the prisoner more or less in the open fenced area that was designated for another prison at the Lusignan Prison site.

“It is not a very nice situation as you would appreciate…we have to secure the prisoners, secure what remains of Camp Street, make every effort to catch those on the run and make every effort to make the people of Georgetown and those in its environs, and the entire country safe,” he said.

“Our immediate task is to make those prisoners, just over 1000, secure this evening and probably the next 48hrs and I had to make the call where that will be and in association with the prime technicians …it was decided it will be at Lusignan,” he added.

Tents

Ramjattan said that tents were being rented to provide shelter at the open air faciltilty and also that efforts were being made to “house these people in better condition…tents, portable toilets, better lighting…much effort to make it accommodating,” he said.

President David Granger echoed much of what Ramjattan said informing on TV that he was briefed by Ramjattan on yesterday’s events. He said that a primary concern was that prisoners were not “let loose on society.”

Granger said some prisoners will go to Mazaruni some to Lusignan and possibly Timehri. “I expect by the next 12 hours, all the prisoners will be back in secure accommodation.”

“The government is acting very quickly to ensure the prisoners are caught and those at the prison kept in a secure place. I am very confident by Monday morning they will be in secure accommodations. I would like to assure Guyanese that the government is working very hard…to bring normalcy back,” he said.

He said an area that needs to be looked at was that “there were far too many people on remand” and the judiciary needs to most move swiftly to ensure that this ceases.

He said too that government has “already started taking action on the CoI report of 2016 and the public knows very well that we are building a huge new prison at Mazaruni…so we did take action on the COI report and we did take action to reduce the prison population and enhance the infrastructure.”

Panel