Dear Editor
The conviction of Ryan Subryan, a Guyanese illegal immigrant hiding in Belfast, Northern Ireland is as much a tragedy of the pain a terrible beast can inflict upon society as it is the tragedy a society can impose on its citizenry when there is a broken system of justice and policing.
Prior to his two brutal crimes in Ireland, Ryan Subryan was the subject of charges in Guyana in 2005. He was then a 21-year old taxi driver who was charged with raping a female passenger before robbing her at gunpoint of a quantity of cash. It appears that Subryan was not required to enter a plea for rape. His only plea entered was a not guilty plea for robbery under arms. Subryan appeared before Magistrate Cecil Sullivan who released him on $75,000 bail. Subryan reportedly skipped bail, never returned to court for the matter and fled the country. He ended up in Ireland illegally and in 2007 he committed two heinous crimes.
It is a tragedy that a Guyanese woman who was allegedly similarly sexually assaulted with attendant violence could not obtain justice within her own country. The women Ryan Subryan attacked in Belfast obtained some measure of justice because the system was created to ensure justice was served and it did not fail them. It is fitting that the judge has ordered Subryan to be deported to Guyana upon the completion of his sentence. The question is whether the system in Guyana will be ready to bring justice to Ryan Subryan upon his return to the shores of Guyana. It is shocking that our system sometimes easily enables suspected criminals, from drug dealers to rapists, to roam freely on the streets of Guyana and to flee the country taking their criminality to other parts of the world. The Guyanese authorities are often up in arms about the policies of wealthy nations regarding the return of deportees to Guyana. However, the fact of the matter is that lax policing, rampant corruption, inefficient
systems and a decrepit system of justice in Guyana often fail in the investigation of crime and prosecution of criminals. Some of these individuals like Ryan Subryan venture to other
nations and try to commit the same crimes and suffer the consequences. Who will protect the women of Guyana when Ryan Subryan is deported to the weak system of justice in Guyana?
Yours faithfully,
Michael Max
