PARAMARIBO (Reuters) – The lawyer representing Suriname’s ex-President Desi Bouterse, who has yet to turn himself in to start a prison sentence for involvement in the murder of 15 activists in 1982, said today he planned to speak with his client.
A three-judge panel in December affirmed the convictions of Bouterse, 78, and four others in the execution of the government critics, including lawyers, journalists, union leaders, soldiers and university professors. He was ordered this week to report to jail.
Bouterse’s wife, Ingrid Bouterse-Waldring, earlier told journalists outside their home that “he’s not going to turn himself in.”
Lawyer Irvin Kanhai, arriving at the prison in Paramaribo, Suriname’s capital, with two of the other men convicted in the case, said he would talk with the former leader, 78.
“I am going to talk to him now and then we will see what we are going to do,” Kanhai said. “I don’t know him (to do anything) other than to bow his head to law and justice.”
Bouterse dominated politics in the former Dutch colony for decades and left office in 2020.
He has denied the charges but was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Asked if efforts were being made to track down Bouterse, prosecutor’s office spokesperson Joelle Zaalman told Reuters: “Due to strategic considerations, no answer to this question.”
Advocates, including Sunil Oemrawsingh, president of an association of relatives of victims in the so-called December murders, and international observers said it was no surprise Bouterse did not show.
“The authorities have shown an admirable determination to uphold the rule of law and I expect that they won’t hesitate to enforce the arrest warrant,” lawyer Reed Brody, who monitored the case for non-governmental organization the International Commission of Jurists, said in a message.
Current President Chan Santokhi investigated the case as a police commissioner and later, as justice minister, pushed for it to move ahead.
The court ruled in 2019 that Bouterse had overseen an operation in which soldiers abducted 16 leading government critics, murdering all but one of them at a colonial fortress in the capital Paramaribo.
One trade union leader survived and testified against Bouterse, who seized power in a 1980 coup against Suriname’s first prime minister just five years after independence.
Bouterse has said in the past the murdered men were connected to an invasion plot involving the Netherlands and the United States.
One other man convicted alongside Bouterse also failed to report to prison, the prosecutor’s office said.
