Mark Royden Williams called ‘Smallie’ yesterday escaped from the Mazaruni Prison, a maximum security facility, following an exchange of gunfire with prison officers.
‘Smallie’ is listed as a death row prisoner and according to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA), the convicted killer escaped with the aid of heavily armed accomplices in a speedboat at Mazaruni Prison just around 14:30 hours while he was being escorted back to his quarters following a visit.
At the time, the escort party was fired upon with AK-47 automatic rifles from the boat alongside the Mazaruni River during the transfer and it was then ‘Smallie’ escaped with the men.
The boat and its occupants proceeded upstream, past Itaballi landing, while prison guards with police in support followed in hot pursuit.
MoHA said that members of the Joint Services have been mobilized to effect the recapture of Williams and to capture and or arrest his accomplices and also a preliminary investigation is underway, and persons are being questioned in relation to this extremely serious incident.
The release further informed that Joint Services and other security personnel are on high alert. All citizens in the Mazaruni and surrounding areas have been advised to take precautions and remain vigilant as the persons sought are armed and are considered as being extremely dangerous. It was also made clear that aiding and abetting a prison escapee can result in a prison sentence of three or more years if and when convicted.
Back in 2022, ‘Smallie’ was sentenced to death for the 2008 murder of Guyana Defence Force (GDF) officer Ivor Williams.
Sherwin Nero also known as ‘Catty’, had also been charged and later he confessed to killing Williams and was released from prison after he pleaded guilty to a lesser count of manslaughter and was sentenced for time already served back in 2020.
Nero and ‘Smallie’ were jointly charged for the offence and Nero was freed based on time spent on remand since June 2008.
Reports are that around 8:30 pm on the day in question several armed men ambushed a GDF vehicle returning to Camp Ayanganna from an administrative run in Berbice.
The gunmen engaged the soldiers on the Railway Embankment Road between Church of God and Company roads, during which Williams was fatally shot and two others, a soldier and a Friendship woman, were injured.
In 2017, ‘Smallie’ along with his co-accused Dennis Williams, called ‘Anaconda’, were both sentenced to death after they were found guilty of storming Bartica, where 12 men, including three police officers, were killed during an almost hour-long assault. Those killed in the rampage were police officers Lance Corporal Zaheer Zakir, and Constables Shane Fredericks and Ron Osborne, and civilians Edwin Gilkes, Dexter Adrian, Irving Ferreira, Deonarine Singh, Ronald Gomes, Ashraf Khan, Abdool Yasseen, Errol Thomas, and Baldeo Singh.
‘Smallie’ and company had appealed the sentence but months after, ‘Smallie’ was among the group of high-profile prisoners who escaped after a fire gutted the Camp Street Prison in Georgetown.
He was however apprehended weeks later by police while riding a public minibus on the Weldaad Public Road, West Coast Berbice.
‘Smallie’ was said to be the mastermind in setting up the entire incident.
In 2021, a jury found ‘Smallie’ not guilty of the December 16, 2007 murders of 35-year-old Rajesh Singh and 25-year-old Fazal Hakim, at Triumph, ECD.
Another man, Michael Caesar, called ‘Capone’, was sentenced to 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter for the deaths of Singh and Hakim.
Caesar, is also currently serving a 45- and 60-year sentence respectively for killing a total of 20 people during the Bartica and Lusignan massacres.
Several of the men charged and sentenced were reportedly part of the most notorious gang in Guyana’s history led by Rondell Rawlins called ‘Fine Man’, which invaded the mining community of Bartica, murdered several persons.
On January 6, 2008, gunmen went from house to house in the village of Lusignan with high powered rifles and killed eleven persons, five of whom were children, as they slept in their homes.
Rawlins was killed back in 2008 following months of frenetic and bloody pursuit, while murder accused Jermaine ‘Skinny’ Charles, was shot by police, the culmination of an almost seven-hour-long operation starting at Timehri.
