Ravindra Samaroo, one of the two inmates who fled from the New Amsterdam Prison, has been recaptured and charged over his escape.
Ranks attached to a Guyana Prison Service Task Force on Thursday night managed to recapture Samaroo, who along with fellow inmate Lennox Patterson escaped from the prison on Wednesday night. The men managed to get down from the top flat of a building in the compound of the New Amsterdam Prison using bedsheets before scaling a perimeter fence, which is at least 15 feet high and outfitted with razor wire.
Up to last evening, Patterson was still on the run.
Sources told Stabroek News that police managed to apprehend Samaroo, 23, at Timmers Dam, Angoys Avenue, sometime around 8pm.
Samaroo, an armed robbery accused, had been living in the area prior to his incarceration.
Members of the task force, this newspaper was told, were on a routine stakeout when they encountered the escapee in the area. The prisoner is reported to have told the officers that he planned the escape because he was frustrated. He said he wanted to get out of prison and although he had been granted bail, he could not afford it.
Samaroo was yesterday charged at the New Amsterdam Magistrate’s Court with escaping from lawful custody. The man, who exhibited no signs of injuries to his body, was not required to plea and was once more remanded to prison. He is to return to court on August 31st.
Meanwhile, Shafeek Yorrick, an attempted murder accused who was released on $350,000 bail yesterday, claimed he had been occupying the same cell as Samaroo. However, he said he was sleeping when the prisoners escaped.
Yorrick said he and another inmate and Samaroo had occupied the cell.
He related that on Wednesday night he drank a Valium pill to sleep and only became aware of the escape after a prison warden pounded on the cell door and asked how many men were in the cell. Unaware that one of his cellmates was missing, he announced three.
He said the prison wardens barged into the cells and instructed them to leave. Yorrick said he was hit with a baton by one of the officers and he was later treated by a doctor at the prison.
Yorrick added that he did not know anything about the escape plan and added that even if he had been given the chance to escape he would not have because his family was working to post his bail for him.
Like Samaroo, Patterson, 26, was on remand on a charge of armed robbery. His last known address was 69 Sisters Village, East Bank Berbice.
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum continues to urge anyone who has spotted Patterson to immediately contact the police and he assured that the information provided will be treated with strict confidence. He said too that relatives, friends and other individuals who are found to have aided in harbouring the escapee will be prosecuted.
