Latest update May 13th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 15, 2008 News
“He was in a terrible state…he was collapsing and his shoulders and buttocks were burnt…”
Police ranks yesterday said that prisoner Edwin Niles had shown evidence of having suffered a terrible beating when they went to the Camp Street Prison to collect him.
The ranks repeatedly denied that any injuries that Niles sustained occurred at the Brickdam Police Station.
Niles, 34, succumbed from his injuries on Friday night and his relatives have accused the security services of beating and scalding him with hot water.
The PNCR and AFC have since leveled similar accusations against the Joint Services (see other story).
Police officials said that ranks from the Brickdam Police Station visited the Georgetown Prison at around 20:00 hrs on July 3, after prison officials informed them that they had caught an inmate, later identified as Edwin Niles, with ammunition.
This newspaper was told that the police ranks were taken to an office that appeared to be that of a senior prison official.
According to the sources, several soldiers and prison officers were with Niles. The sources recalled that Niles was shirtless and that his trousers and underwear were ‘hanging’ below his buttocks.
According to the sources, Niles was leaning against a wall and showed signs of having been severely injured.
“He was in a terrible state. His buttocks and shoulders were burnt,” one police officer said. According to the source, the burns on Niles’s buttocks were so severe that the skin had peeled off.
“He was bracing a wall. He could hardly stand. Every time he go to fall, they would push him to the wall.”
Kaieteur News understands that the police ranks were reluctant to take the injured prisoner to the Brickdam Police Station, but eventually did.
The police officers are adamant that Niles only spent about 15 minutes at the Brickdam Police Station.
During this time, they tried unsuccessfully to question the injured prisoner about the ammunition.
Instead, Niles kept asking for water and the ranks gave him water in a bottle.
Kaieteur News was told that a senior police officer recalled that the last injured prisoner who had asked for water had succumbed.
He reportedly then ordered the ranks to take Niles to the Georgetown Public Hospital where the injured prisoner was placed under guard. Niles’s relatives were not allowed to visit him.
However, the inmate’s reputed wife was allowed to speak briefly with him on one occasion.
Niles reportedly had a relapse on Friday, and his mother Brenda Welcome-Nurse told Kaieteur News that she saw two prison officers pushing her son in a wheelchair.
He eventually succumbed at around 23:00 hrs that night.
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