Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj have writ­ten to the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Sec­re­tari­at, in­di­cat­ing that their client in­tends to chal­lenge the con­duct of the State of Suri­name “both re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly if nec­es­sary,” fol­low­ing his de­ten­tion in the Dutch-speak­ing Cari­com coun­try in 2020.

In a May 15 let­ter to the Guyana-based Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at and copied to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in Suri­name and the Bar­ba­dos-based Of­fice of Trade Ne­go­ti­a­tions, the law firm Justin Phelps wrote of “the po­lit­i­cal­ly con­trolled pros­e­cu­tion” of their client in Suri­name “which has in­volved se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al law”.

The let­ter, a copy of which has been ob­tained by the Caribbean Me­dia Cor­po­ra­tion (CMC), not­ed that fol­low­ing a work­ing vis­it in ear­ly 2020, Ram­samooj’s de­par­ture from Suri­name was de­layed due to the COVID -19 pan­dem­ic and two days be­fore he was ex­pect­ed to de­part Suri­name, he was de­tained at his ho­tel and told he had been placed on a “no-fly” list as a wit­ness in con­nec­tion with fraud al­leged­ly com­mit­ted “by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment.”

The lawyers said their client, who has ad­vised po­lit­i­cal par­ties across the re­gion for over 25 years, “was in­ter­ro­gat­ed about the work he had done for the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment” and “there­after held with­out ac­cess to a court or coun­sel for 18 days, and for a fur­ther 57 days with­out charge af­ter ac­cess to coun­sel was per­mit­ted.”

The lawyers said the “po­lit­i­cal pros­e­cu­tion” of their client by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment head­ed by “Chan San­tokhi, a for­mer po­lice chief and min­is­ter of jus­tice, in­volved se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tions” of their client’s ba­sic hu­man rights and in­ter­na­tion­al law.

“He has been de­nied coun­sel, prop­er med­ical treat­ment, ac­cess to the courts and a fair and im­par­tial ju­di­cial tri­bunal. He was forced to place his sig­na­ture on doc­u­ments in the Dutch lan­guage (which he does not un­der­stand), sub­ject­ed to pro­longed de­ten­tion with­out be­ing tak­en be­fore a court of law or be­ing charged, was de­tained in con­di­tions un­fit even for an­i­mals and sub­ject­ed to lengthy in­ter­ro­ga­tion with­out the pro­vi­sion of ba­sic hu­man ameni­ties such as food, med­i­cine and sleep.”

The let­ter notes that the “cts at­trib­ut­able to the State of Suri­name in­clude the fab­ri­ca­tion of charges” against their client, “mo­ti­vat­ed by the fact that he had worked for a ri­val po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

The lawyers claim that the “au­thor­i­ties in Suri­name have for more than two years had in their pos­ses­sion doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence” prov­ing their client’s “in­no­cence be­yond any doubt and ex­pos­ing the charges as ut­ter­ly con­trived and base­less”.

The four-page let­ter not­ed that “the un­de­ni­able in­flu­ence of pol­i­tics in this case is more alarm­ing still due to the struc­tur­al flaws which ex­ist with­in the con­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work in Suri­name”.

The lawyers said their client has “med­ical ev­i­dence that his treat­ment in Suri­name has re­sult­ed in ir­re­versible de­te­ri­o­ra­tion to his health.”

“He suf­fered a stroke in Suri­name which went un­di­ag­nosed. As I have tried to ex­plain above, it is im­pos­si­ble for him to have a fair tri­al in Suri­name. His re­gion­al good rep­u­ta­tion has been put at risk. In short, the un­law­ful con­duct of the State of Suri­name threat­ens to lead to the ru­ina­tion of all facets of my client’s life.”

The lawyers are ask­ing the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at to fur­nish them “with a list and copies of all records of the Com­mu­ni­ty which con­tain the pol­i­cy di­rec­tion/s for the Com­mu­ni­ty de­ter­mined and pro­vid­ed by the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment un­der Ar­ti­cle 12 (2) of the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas.”

Ram­samooj, 62, who holds both T&T and British pass­ports, was sum­mar­i­ly de­tained in Para­mari­bo in Oc­to­ber 2020 and was not al­lowed to leave the coun­try un­til Sep­tem­ber 2022. He suf­fers from a range of med­ical is­sues in­clud­ing di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion and se­vere coro­nary artery dis­ease.

A pre­sid­ing judge had or­dered the au­thor­i­ties in Suri­name to re­turn his pass­ports, not­ing that Ram­samooj had, at all times, demon­strat­ed a will­ing­ness to sup­port due process, and had con­sis­tent­ly stat­ed his de­sire to clear his name through the le­gal routes.

The an­a­lyst, who has worked in sev­er­al Caribbean coun­tries, in­clud­ing Ja­maica, Guyana, Grena­da, Suri­name, St Lu­cia and St Kitts-Nevis, was told by Suri­name po­lice on Oc­to­ber 6, 2020, that they on­ly want­ed a state­ment to sup­port an en­quiry in­to op­er­a­tions at the Suri­namese Post Sav­ings Bank (SPSB).

Ram­samooj had con­duct­ed for the SPSB cus­tomer sur­veys, as well as bank em­ploy­ee sur­veys, in ad­di­tion to con­duct­ing two coun­try risk as­sess­ments of Suri­name in his ca­pac­i­ty as an an­a­lyst and re­searcher. The ac­tiv­i­ties were paid for by the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion. (CMC)