Angry inmates of the ‘capital’ dormitory of the Camp Street prison ripped out a cell wall and staged a nearly three-hour protest on Thursday night after officers switched off the television they were watching.
The dormitory houses approximately 170 inmates.
However, Director of Prisons Dale Erskine yesterday confirmed that no one was injured during the fracas, which lasted from about 20:00 hrs to 23:00 hrs and forced intervention from heavily armed ranks of the joint services.
Erskine said the situation had returned to normal since officers were able to speak with prisoners, the wall was repaired and a number of grievances were raised by the prisoners.
He said that on Thursday night the television was switched off at the scheduled time, but he felt the prisoners were upset maybe because they felt they should have been given more time since it was the eve of Mashramani.
Prisoners ripped out the boards from the northern wall of their cells and the joint services were alerted immediately and subsequently cordoned off the jail.
Erskine said officers were able to calm down the inmates who took the opportunity to voice concerns and “a delayed trial” was a sore point raised. He said many of the prisoners, particularly those from Amerindian communities, said they had been brought over a year ago and were never placed before the courts.
“We had a long talk with them and so those issues which I could deal with officially I will do so and some have to be dealt with at the ministerial and judicial levels and so I will pass on whatever needs to be passed on to the relevant authorities,” the prison head said.
He said he believes that Thursday’s actions by the prisoners were spontaneous; it didn’t appear that there was planning involved.
However, the exercise gave officials a chance to have total access to cells and according to Erskine a number of sharpened implements were recovered.
He said no narcotics were found during the exercise.
Friday marked five years since five dangerous prisoners broke out of the detention facility, killed a prison officer and left another disabled.
Their escape also saw the beginning of a shocking crime wave across the country: a series of robberies, execution-style killings and kidnappings.
All five of them were eventually killed with the last, only in October last year, after being on the run since February 2002.
Recently, nine prisoners escaped from the Mazaruni prison, but not for too long, since all nine were recaptured over a ten-day period.
Those prisoners were again placed before the courts and given additional sentences for escaping from lawful custody.
