A female officer at the New Amsterdam Prison was on Sunday taken into custody after she was allegedly found with a quantity of cannabis at the New Amsterdam Prison.
Reports are that the officer asked an inmate to take a bag into the prison and give it to another inmate.
According to information reaching Guyana Times, when the prisoner enquired, he was told that it was medication for another inmate. According to reports as the inmate was going through the second checkpoint, the officer at that gate ordered that he present the bag to be checked. At that point, the female officer who was a close nearby moved up and attempted to take away the bag. There was a tussle which caused a senior officer to investigate.
The senior requested possession of the bag and upon checking its contents, a quantity of leaves, seeds and stems was discovered. The matter was reported to the Police and the female officer taken into custody.
Meanwhile on August 28 last, the same female officer was fingered in another drug bust at that very prison.
On that occasion, a convicted inmate was found with 7 grams of cannabis sativa and implicated the said officer. The illegal drug was found when convicted inmate Ayube Rangasammy was seen acting in a suspicious manner. A search conductedof the bag he was carrying revealed a quantity of leaves, seeds and stems of the illegal plant.The inmate told investigators that a female Prison Officer took the drug into the prison and placed in a bucket by a sink for him to uplift. Rangasammy subsequently pleaded guilty to trafficking in narcotic within the prison and was sentenced, while the Director of Public Prosecutions had advised that no charges be brought against the officer since the Police had failed to produce evidence that she may have knowledge of the bag—and its contents. (Andrew Carmichael)
