Police urge prison escapees to surrender

…solicit assistance of public to provide information

The manhunt has intensified to apprehend the four prisoners who escaped from the Camp Street and Lusignan prisons respectively on July 9 and 24, and the Guyana Police Force (GPF) is urging them to surrender, in order to avoid any serious confrontation that would result in the use of force.

This call was made on Wednesday as the Guyana Police Force issued new wanted bulletins for the four fugitive convicts — Uree Varswyck, also called “Malcolm Gordon”; Mark Royden Durant, also called “Royden Williams” and “Smallie”; Cobena Stephens, also known as “OJ”; and Paul Goriah.

Eleven of the inmates who escaped from the Lusignan Prison have so far been recaptured; but one, Clive Forde, was killed during a violent gun battle with members of the Joint Services on Sunday last in East La Penitence, Georgetown.

Stafrie Alexander Hopkinson, one of the four who escaped from the Camp Street Penitentiary, was arrested in Berbice on Saturday evening.

The GPF is urging members of the public and relatives and friends of these four wanted men to provide the police with any relevant information regarding their whereabouts, so they can be recaptured and returned to prison.

Seven of the recaptured escapees have since been arraigned before Cove and John Magistrate Peter Hugh. During the arraignment, 22-year-old Jamal Forde, Jamal Joseph, and 19-year-old Winston Long pleaded guilty as charged and were each sentenced to a year’s imprisonment.

Teshawn McKenzie, Royan Jones, Jason Howard, and Odel Roberts pleaded not guilty as charged, and were remanded until their case is called again, in August, at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court. The arraigned escapees told the court that they had escaped from a pasture, and not a prison. They argued that the only reason they had so done was because of the conditions in which they were forced to stay.

Those escapees who have not yet been arraigned before a magistrate are expected to so do during the week.

Camp Street Penitentiary escapee Uree Varswyck has been identified as the person who had shot and killed Prison Officer Odinga Wickham and had injured at least four other officers, one of whom has claimed that he had to “play dead” in order to survive the attack. Varswyck is an ex-police rank who has been charged with the 2014 murder of a security guard at the Sterling Products Limited during a robbery.

He has also been fingered as the one who had suggested that 22-year-old taxi driver Matthew Shivtahal be put to death, after holding the taxi driver hostage for more than 24 hours.

Mark Royden Durant, on the other hand, has been identified as the one who had allowed the taxi driver to go free after the driver had pleaded for his life. A seemingly more dangerous “Smallie” has been sentenced to death for his involvement in the Bartica Massacre which claimed the lives of 12 persons in 2008.

Cobena Stephens and Paul Goriah were each charged and remanded for separate murders.

Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan only recently told media operatives that although 11 of the Lusignan Prison escapees have been arrested, along with an escapee from Camp Street, a lot more still needs to be done to bring the security situation in the country back to normalcy.

He accordingly is encouraging the public to continue collaborating with the lawmen as the manhunt continues to apprehend the four criminals who remain on the run, and he has cautioned that they should be considered dangerous.

Anyone with information that could lead to the arrest of these four men is asked to contact the police on telephone numbers 225-6411, 225-8196, 911, or the nearest police station.

The Police Force has assured that all information will be treated with the strictest confidentiality.