Five high-profile prisoners were each sentenced to three years imprisonment yesterday, after being found guilty of escaping from the Georgetown Prison, Camp Street, in December 2008.
Magistrate Susanna Lovell handed down the sentences for Dennis Williams called ‘Anaconda,’ Sherwin Nero called ‘Sherwin Moses,’ Mark Royden Roberts called ‘Durant Williams,’ Paul Bagot and Jermaine Savory, when they appeared before her at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court. Dwayne Archibald, the sixth defendant, was fatally stabbed by an inmate of the Camp Street prison on August 20, 2009. He was awaiting trial on a narcotics-related charge. The other five defendants had been remanded on charges of murder.
Police Corporal Neville Jeffers, who had made previous submissions to the court, was told by the magistrate that the prosecution led a strong case against the defendants. Magistrate Lovell then informed the defendants that they had been found guilty as charged beyond a reasonable doubt.
In addition to the above charge, Nero was also charged with escaping lawful custody and was sentenced to an additional three years. His sentences will run concurrently.
The prosecution charged that on December 28, 2008, at Georgetown, being confined at the Georgetown Prison on criminal charges, the defendants broke the window of the capital division with intent to set themselves free.
Nero was found in Rasville, Roxanne Burnham Gardens with visible cuts and bruises about his body, which the police said he sustained during his escape. He was rearrested some two hours after the escape while the other defendants had been apprehended in the compound of the prison.
From all indications, the men sawed a hole in the wall over a period of time. “They had to put back the boards they sawed out during the night so the prison officer wouldn’t see the hole in the day,” a source told this newspaper at the time.
The defendants had all pleaded not guilty. The two year trial commenced on January 7, 2009.
An unrepresented Roberts, in his defence, said that he did not leave the prison by force. According to him, he saw a hole in the prison window and crawled through.
Savory was accused of the early morning murder of Melissa Payne on the Agricola Public Road, East Bank Demerara. Reports are that the van in which Payne was travelling had broken down at the location. The accused allegedly approached her and demanded her handbag, which had a quantity of cash. The woman resisted and was mortally wounded.
Dennis Williams and Mark Roberts were charged along with others with 12 counts of murder over the February 17, 2008 Bartica massacre.
Bagot, 32, who was acquitted at the High Court on December 6, 2010 on a charge of murdering his 16-year-old girlfriend Abigail Gittens, broke down in tears after being sentenced. He was accused of murdering Gittens on December 29, 2004.
Nero was charged with the murder of Guyana Defence Force soldier Ivor Williams and Cove and John resident Kumar Singh. He also reportedly had links to slain gang leader Rondell ‘Fineman’ Rawlins.
