The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will soon decide if charges will be laid against any prison officer for the death of Camp Street prisoner Edwin Niles who was allegedly beaten after he was found with ammunition in his pants pocket last month.
Commissioner of Police (ag) Henry Greene noted yesterday that the matter has been sent to the DPP for ruling. Niles was reportedly dealt a thrashing at the hands of the prison officials after he was found with seven live .22 rounds in the pockets of his pants after returning from a day of labour at army base Camp Ayanganna on July 2. It was during interrogation about where he got the rounds that he was beaten with a rubber hose and then burnt with a hot liquid. Niles had gotten the pants from a room at Camp Ayanganna which he had cleaned.
He subsequently died at the Georgetown Hospital. His cause of death was given as a clot in his lungs as a result of burns.
Meanwhile commenting on the probe into the death of another Camp Street prisoner, Nolan Noble, Greene said that that matter is still under investigations and according to the doctors his injuries could have been self- inflicted.
He said that from reports the man was isolated because of his mental condition.
“Sometime during the day we heard he was taken out, during which time he fell down. Other prisoners are saying so. They took him back to the cell and subsequently this prisoner was discovered not well and subsequently he was pronounced dead at the hospital”, he said.
Greene informed the media that this is what the advice is so far showing but the file has not yet been completed.
“But the doctor did say that the injuries found on the prisoner could have been self inflicted”, he added.
Two Saturdays ago Noble was taken from Camp Street to the Georgetown Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
There were marks of violence on his body and a post-mortem examination revealed that he died from blunt force trauma to the head.
Noble a resident of Linden has been mentally ill for years owing to drug abuse and was in prison for murder.
