The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has supported police recommendations for murder charges to be laid against two senior prison officers who have been implicated in the beating of prisoner Edwin Niles, sources say.
Niles succumbed to severe burns to his back nine days after he was admitted a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital.
Niles was beaten after he was allegedly found with several rounds of .22 ammunition in his pants pocket during a routine check upon returning to the Camp Street prison after he had completed a day of labour at army base Camp Ayanganna.
A post-mortem examination later revealed that he died as a result of blood clot in the lungs due to burns about the back. He also suffered a fractured left arm.
A high ranking police official told this newspaper yesterday that the file with the recommendations has since been forwarded to the Brickdam Police Station for action which could see the officers being taken before the courts as early as today.
Niles’ mother who had witnessed the post-mortem examination and told this newspaper that she had seen numerous scald marks on her son’s body which made him appear as though he was ‘cooked‘ from his neck going down to his back, has been calling for something to come out of the investigations into her son’s death.
Speaking with this newspaper yesterday the woman, Brenda Nurse, told Stabroek News that she had not been hearing much about the investigations since her last update which had said that the matter was with the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice.
She said she has since seen media reports on the prison officers but was still awaiting final word as to what would come out of the matter. When told of the police officer’s revelation to this newspaper, the woman said she was still hopeful that someone was made to answer for her son’s brutal treatment.
She said that it was an inhumane act and regardless of whether her son was guilty or innocent of the alleged act he was a human being.
“If this is indeed so, my son has a daughter and she needs to be satisfied that this is not just another investigation where nothing is done. But like everyone else the officers are innocent until proven guilty,” the woman said.
She recounted that she is still affected every moment she remembers her son who would have been released from prison this month had he been alive. “I am a mother like any other and I pray that this type of torture stops. They must find ways to discipline them properly. They are welfare officers and they are entrusted by the state and cannot be allowed to torture someone then they die and nothing is done about it,” she added. Reports had stated that Edwin Niles was serving a sentence for possession of narcotics. On July 2, prison officers reportedly found him with the ammunition in his pockets and it was during interrogation that he was beaten with a rubber hose and then burnt with a hot liquid. He had reportedly found the pants he was wearing at the army base where he had cleaned a room. A Board of Inquiry was set up at the army base and several army ranks were questioned.
Many concerned groups had added their voices to calls for an impartial investigation into the man’s death.
The Guyana Human Rights Association and the main opposition People’s National Congress Reform were in the forefront of these calls.
Opposition leader Robert Corbin called for the man’s death to be treated as murder while in the custody of the prison authorities and at best, death under mysterious circumstances which required investigations. He insisted that there was no question that the man was murdered and in a letter to the Acting Police Commissioner contended that the police had an obligation to tell the nation what exactly occurred and who was guilty of the killing.
