Two months after a teenager was found hanging by his jersey in the Enmore Police Outpost lock-ups, his relatives still refuse to accept the police’s findings of suicide and remain adamant that foul play was involved.
The relatives of 19-year-old Ramesh Sawh called `Kenny’ of 75 Logwood, Enmore, East Coast Dem-erara who was found dead on January 17 said that even though they have not received much help from those in authority despite their best efforts to reopen the matter, they are not giving up.
On Tuesday they called for justice to be served and for those in authority to act swiftly to find whoever was responsible for Sawh’s death.
The man’s relatives said they could not accept the police’s explanation because there was nothing in the cell to facilitate a hanging. Besides this, they said, Sawh never displayed any suicidal tendencies and they find it hard to believe that he would kill himself because he was accused of stealing a car battery from a resident. They said too that the state his body was in was not consistent with suicide. There were no marks around his neck where the jersey was and his tongue was not out of his mouth, they said.
Attorney-at-law Anil Nandlall, who is watching over the family’s interest in the matter, said that he had written to the Police Com-missioner (ag) Henry Greene and Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack and recently received their replies.
He told this newspaper that they both said the matter was pending investigation and whether an inquest would be held was being considered.
Stabroek News was informed that at least one of the policemen who had been on duty at the time of the incident had been transferred. However, this could not be confirmed as the police could not be contacted for a comment on this and on the claims made by the man’s family, despite several attempts by this newspaper.
To further substantiate their suspicions, family members told this newspaper that Sawh had been a target for the police whenever there were petty crimes in the area and they said that whenever he was held, ranks would put a black bag over his head before trying to beat a confession out of him.
The most recent occasion they said was on December 19 last year when he was arrested following a burglary allegation by a resident two houses away.
Speaking to Stabroek News last week, Sawh’s sister Jenny said the resident alleged that he saw him jumping over a fence with his DVD player and stereo set in hand.
She said the man said that he saw her brother enter their house with his articles. The young woman said that this allegation was false since her brother was sick since the night before and was confined to bed. She said the man took the police to the home but they turned down an invitation by her father to search the premises for the missing articles. Instead, she said, the policeman commanded them to get Sawh downstairs; he arrived clad only in his underwear, with his eyes “full of sleep”. Jenny said that although they told the policeman that he had been sick in bed with a fever, he was arrested and taken to the community’s police outpost where he spent five days.
Christmas
He was only released after his mother, Indrouttie begged for him to be released for Christmas. She had to pay $5,000 station bail. However, the young man was subsequently charged along with two others and when they appeared at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court, they were released on $20,000 bail each. At the time of his death, the case was still ongoing.
Jenny told this newspaper of many incidents where her brother was labelled guilty of crimes in the community although other persons had confessed to them.
With respect to the last incident he was held for, the woman said she found it strange that the police would lock him up for that since the article was allegedly stolen from a car that was parked at the side of the road. The woman said the man might have made the allegation because he liked to pick on unemployed youths in the area.
Asked why the police and fellow residents would have been harassing Sawh, she said she was clueless, but the fact that he would have been walking around the community a lot and had no steady job might have had something to do with it.
The woman said that so far they have taken their case to the Police Complaints Authority, the Office of the President, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee and the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA).
Meanwhile, Jenny along with her brother Terry expressed shock that to date police had not made contact with any member of the family over the incident.
They said they never even knew that he was in the lock-ups although the complainant lives a few doors away. They said it was another resident who delivered the tragic news to them.
Terry told this newspaper that when he went to the station the police confirmed that his brother was dead. He said the police told him that when they had found him, he was not dead and they had rushed him down to the hospital. He added that in the cell where his brother was found, there were no pipes, beams or anything that could facilitate a hanging.
Screaming
Meanwhile, the dead man’s devastated parents Tejram and Indrouttie vowed never to give up.
Indrouttie said someone at the Office of the President had promised to return a call to her, while someone at Police Headquarters had told her a month ago that they would investigate her son’s death.
“My child was never suicidal and he left home good, good the morning,” she said adding that he was doing some “casting work” at someone’s home when the allegation of a stolen battery was made.
Trying to control her emotions the woman said that shortly after the tragedy, a man on a motorcycle went to their home and said he was at the station, where he had gone to report a matter, on the day in question.
She said the man told them he heard a lot of screaming and he heard the police cursing. After a while, the commotion stopped and shortly after, he said, he saw policemen come out of a room with a man with his hands cuffed behind his back. They took him into another room.
Indrouttie added that the man recalled that there was a plastic bag over Sawh’s head as well. The man said a policeman emerged shortly after and said no more reports would be taken there and he should go to another police station.
Asked if the man had gone to the authorities, the woman said the man told them he was afraid to come forward.
“When I call the station [shortly after hearing of the incident], they told me yes he hang he self and that we have to go to the mortuary,” she said adding that the policeman then slammed down the receiver.
“…Everything in this case looks suspicious. Whenever anything happen the police always running coming to arrest him but the day he died, where were they? They didn’t run and come to tell we that they arrest him or that he dead. They never came,” she said angrily.
She admitted that her son had had brushes with the law, but said he was never convicted of anything.
Meanwhile, Sawh’s father Tejram repeatedly said that there was no way his son could have killed himself. Explaining what the lock-ups looked like, he said it had four walls and on one of them there were six small holes – two rows of three and each hole was six inches apart.
He added that the holes were too high for anyone to reach unless they were standing on something and there was nothing in the cell for anyone to stand on.
“If anyone want to hang themselves they have to get assistance from outside to push the other end of the cloth or the rope through the other hole,” he said.
Asked if he saw anything suspicious on the body, Tejram said that he never had a chance to examine the body. He said when he went to the mortuary the following day, a cloth was wrapped around his son’s neck and the rest of his body was covered in plastic.
He said his brother was present for the post-mortem examination and he noticed a mark on his face but the doctor said that it was a bruise. He added that his brother did not report seeing any marks around the neck.
The man expressed concern that the post-mortem did not reveal that his neck was broken, something that was consistent with hanging, he said. Sawh’s relatives are keeping their fingers crossed that they will soon be able to hear the truth about what transpired that day.
Police in a press release sent hours after Sawh’s death said that they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident.
The release said Sawh was arrested following a larceny report and was taken to the outpost around 11.40 am. Police said that when they checked on Sawh, who was alone in his cell, he was found hanging by his jersey, which had been stripped to make a rope, attached to the metal ventilation grill work in the lock ups.
In a subsequent release the force dispelled the family’s claim that he died from a beating while in custody. A release said that an investigation found no evidence to substantiate the family’s claim and this is supported by the post-mortem examination, conducted by Dr Nehaul Singh. The cause of death was given as asphyxiation due to compression of the neck due to hanging.
