Prisoners escape through hole

…despite 3 layers of security

Thirteen inmates who were incarcerated at the Lusignan Prison on the Demerara East Coast were able to escape from the facility through a hole dug under the fence despite there being three layers of security at the penitentiary — Police ranks, Guyana Defence Force personnel, and officers from the Guyana Prison

Acting Police Commissioner David Ramnarine

Service.

It is believed that the inmates crawled to freedom during a period of heavy rainfall late Sunday night into early Monday morning. Director of Prisons Gladwin Samuels told the media on Monday at a press conference that the hole was five feet in depth and some five feet in length. He added that the heavy rains aided the prisoners in digging their path to freedom.

The director claimed that the section through which the men escaped is in a swamp, and was blocked off from the view of some of the law enforcement ranks. It was explained that some of the prisoners in the swamp were refusing to use the portable toilets deployed at the facility and had opted instead to ease their bowels in the vicinity of an open area near the fence.

That area did not remain open for long, Samuels explained, because prisoners used zinc sheets to prevent others from seeing the activities which were taking

Acting Prisons Director Gladwin Samuels

place in the hole – a hole which the men deepened and crawled through.

He said that although there was a tower near the escape route, ranks stationed there would have had reduced visibility because of the heavy rainfall. Probed on whether any action was taken against those ranks, Samuels said no rank was placed under close arrest for the escape.

Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan confirmed that no member of the joint services had been detained.

The Prison Director also admitted that the usage of cellphones remains a problem and a “business” within the correctional facility. He highlighted that, given the nature of the ongoing tensions, it would be dangerous to attempt extracting those instruments from the inmates at the Lusignan prison.

He further told media personnel that there was a locking down tally on Sunday

The hole the prisoners use to escape

afternoon at Lusignan, where 99 prisoners in the swampy area, 104 in the new holding area, and 136 within the actual prison at Lusignan were recorded. But at Monday morning’s tally, the swampy area reflected a difference to Sunday’s locking down tally.

The Prison Director and Public Security Minister both brushed aside calls for an independent review into the prison numbers. Meanwhile, acting Police Commissioner David Ramnarine disclosed that security has been beefed up along several sections of the Demerara East Coast, and noted that patrols will continue along that corridor.

“We have enhanced and we’re going to maintain the confidence-building patrols with police and soldiers,” Ramnarine noted.

He stressed too that road blocks and stops-and-searches will all be ramped up to recapture the wanted men.