An­na-Lisa Paul

A prison of­fi­cer was ar­rest­ed on Mon­day night at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) in Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, af­ter a pack­age of mar­i­jua­na was seized from an in­mate. The prison of­fi­cer is ac­cused of smug­gling the mar­i­jua­na in­to the prison for the pris­on­er.

Of­fi­cers from the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion were called to the MSP around 9.30 pm and had dis­cus­sions with the su­per­in­ten­dent and an in­mate.

It is al­leged that be­tween 11.45 am and mid­night, the in­mate was hand­ed a black plas­tic bag by the 32-year-old of­fi­cer, in the pres­ence of an­oth­er prison of­fi­cer, fol­low­ing which both men left.

Se­nior prison of­fi­cers lat­er ob­served the in­mate act­ing in a sus­pi­cious man­ner and re­port­ed it to the prison su­per­in­ten­dent, who lat­er searched the bag and found four pack­ets in plas­tic wrap con­tain­ing one kilo­gramme of mar­i­jua­na.

State­ments were record­ed from the in­mate and oth­er prison of­fi­cers.

It was re­port­ed that the of­fi­cer was in­ter­viewed and cau­tioned, af­ter which he was ar­rest­ed by the po­lice and tak­en to the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion.

No charges were laid up to yes­ter­day as in­quiries con­tin­ued.