Akeem Edwards, the convict accused of stabbing a fellow prisoner to death at the Mazaruni Prison remains in custody pending charges as police and prison officials wrap up their investigations.
Edwards of Sheet Anchor, Canje is serving a ten-year sentence for robbery under arms, attempted murder and possession of a firearm. He is currently in custody at Bartica. He allegedly stabbed Theon Smith, a robbery under arms convict, to death on Sunday.
Stabroek News was unable to make contact with Prison Director Welton Trotz and another senior prison official said that he did not have all the details about the incident. The official said the final report will contain all the facts and thereafter a statement can be made to the media.
A source close to the prison said that Smith who was serving a 15-year sentence was stabbed with a knife. This newspaper was also able to gather that the stabbing was sparked by a row between the two inmates. Based on the information provided to this newspaper it was nearing the end of a recreation break that the men had an argument and Smith was stabbed. It is unclear where his alleged killer got the weapon from.
Efforts to contact the relatives of Smith were futile. When Stabroek News visited the Annandale address which he had provided to the court when he first appeared, no one knew him. Checks in neighbouring villages were also unsuccessful.
Smith, in 2008, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of robbery under arms, escape from lawful custody, break and enter and larceny and attempt to commit a felony. The then 18-year-old had committed the offences a few months earlier.
When the prison time Smith should have been spending was calculated, it totalled 61 years. However, the magistrate ordered that all the sentences which Smith had received would run concurrently.
Then in May 2009, he had jumped from the observation post of the Georgetown Prison. His freedom was brief as a woman who had seen him limping along D’Urban Street shortly after immediately informed the police.
Smith’s murder is the latest episode of violence to have hit the prison system. Earlier this year there were three separate attacks at the New Amsterdam Prisons. The most violent one occurred in May when four prisoners had to be hospitalised after they were doused with acid and chopped by a gang armed with cutlasses. Although a Board of Inquiry has concluded its investigations, the findings and recommendations are yet to be made public.
