Members of the Joint Services are on the hunt for an inmate who escaped from the Mazaruni Prison while attending to the prison’s livestock on Saturday.
Christopher Punch
Director of Prisons (ag) Gladwin Samuels in a statement to the press on Sunday stated that at about 14:00h on the day in question, 29-year-old Christopher Punch of El Dorado Village, West Coast Berbice (WCB), was in the prison compound along with other prisoners, attending to livestock, when he escaped.
Earlier that day, the man had requested to go ease his bowels. At about 16:00h, while the supervising prisoner was assembling all of the prisoners to return to their respective cells, it was discovered that Punch was missing. An alarm was raised and the Guyana Police Force was summoned.
According to the Prisons Director, Punch is serving four two-year sentences on a larceny charge.
In 2017, Vijay Sanchara, an inmate of the Mazaruni Prison, disappeared while working on the farm of the same prison. He was subsequently recaptured somewhere around Goat Creek, a mining district in the region.
In that same year, pandemonium broke out at the Camp Street Prison on July 9 when prisoners set the facility on fire.
During the ensuing confusion, several prisoners managed to escape from lawful custody, including convicted murderer Mark Royden Durant, also called “Royden Williams”; Uree Varswyck and Stafrei Hopkinson Alexander, among others.
That incident also resulted in the death of Prison Officer Odinga Wickham, who was shot by prisoners during the breakout.
