RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons (Ag.) De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar has de­scribed the claims made by the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers' As­so­ci­a­tion (2nd Di­vi­son) as "wor­ri­some."

In a state­ment is­sued on Fri­day night, Ra­moutar said he is grave­ly con­cerned about what Lester Lo­gie said on Fri­day fol­low­ing the mur­der of pris­ons of­fi­cer Kendell Smith, "is wor­ri­some as to whether the views ex­pressed are those of the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion (2nd Di­vi­sion) or of the in­di­vid­ual him­self."

Lo­gie said in a video post­ed to Face­book that last year, the state in­stalled cell phone jam­mers at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison. "And since then, all our lives have been un­der threat," he said. "to date, the phones for the in­mates to speak to their fam­i­lies are not work­ing at MSP and there are long lines for them to see wel­fare of­fi­cers that have placed all our lives in dan­ger." Lo­gie called for le­gal phones to be in­stalled at MSP.

How­ev­er, Com­mis­sion­er Ra­moutar said in re­sponse, "In essence, if his sug­ges­tion were to be an­a­lyzed, it would be his en­dorse­ment for in­mates to have il­le­gal or unau­tho­rised phones in their cells. The Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary's call for le­gal phones to be in­stalled in the Prison Ser­vice for the in­mates is a mat­ter on the Prison Agen­da. The of­fi­cer works nowhere near the Ad­min­is­tra­tion and is com­plete­ly un­aware of the run­ning of the Prison Ser­vice and its way for­ward," he added.

Lo­gie then called for the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to re­sign. But Ra­moutar said that call was "out­ra­geous."

Ra­moutar said he has in the past spo­ken against un­fair at­tacks on the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in re­la­tion to prison mat­ters and has been ac­cused of 'singing for his sup­per'.

"How­ev­er, I can re­fute such claims for I have not had any sup­per dur­ing my tenure to date. What I have done though, is be an an­a­lyt­i­cal and as­tute man­ag­er who is un­afraid of crit­i­cism from crooked of­fi­cers who are op­posed to my tenure in of­fice, and I will see them brought be­fore the courts," Ra­moutar said.

In re­spond­ing to the com­mis­sion­er, the Pris­ons Of­fi­cers As­so­ci­a­tion post­ed on Face­book, This is the re­sponse from "Top­py". Not a con­do­lence. Not a plan. Not a mo­ti­va­tion. Not a thing. On­ly a song for his sup­per."

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Smith alias “Po­lo” of #319 Green­vale De­vel­op­ment, Cunu­pia, a Prison Of­fi­cer PO 1 reg­i­men­tal #3996 as­signed to the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison was with his friend, 22, of Sama­roo Vil­lage, Ari­ma at about 6 pm when a white Nis­san AD Wag­on reg­is­tra­tion #PDN 6647, pulled in front of the said lo­ca­tion.

Two men alight­ed from the ve­hi­cle and opened fire on them. The gun­men then es­caped.

Smith and his friend were tak­en to the hos­pi­tal by res­i­dents to seek med­ical at­ten­tion, how­ev­er, at 6:24 pm Smith was pro­nounced dead by a team of doc­tors.

His friend was treat­ed for a gun­shot wound to the left leg and is ward­ed in sta­ble con­di­tion at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.