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Tortured teen taken to hospital – after four days in hell
“I was shocked. It was the most abhorrent sight I have ever seen…it moved me to tears…” -Attorney at Law Khemraj Ramjattan
Attorney at law Khemraj Ramjattan moved to tears as he seeshis client.
By Michael Jordan
His face and body concealed by a bed-sheet, the teenage boy who was tortured by rogue police ranks was yesterday released from the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station and taken to the West Demerara Regional Hospital to be treated for severe burns to his genitals.
He was examined by a doctor before being taken by ambulance to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation around 17:30 hrs for admission under police guard.
The lad’s release from the police lockups came just hours after Kaieteur News published graphic photographs of the severely burned teen on the front page of its Saturday edition.
The young torture victim has been in custody since last Tuesday, and his parents accused police officers of refusing to divulge the lad’s whereabouts until Thursday.
Around 09:30 hrs yesterday, accompanied by attorney-at-law and AFC co-leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, the boy’s mother, Shirley Thomas, was finally reunited with her son.
He was sitting on a bench and covered with a bed-sheet when his parents and attorney-at law Ramjattan arrived at the station.
The sight of her son’s injuries was too much for his mother, who burst into tears when the sheet was removed to reveal his burns.
“I feel really hurt. I don’t know if my son will ever get back good. It really hurtful to know that my son leave home good, good. I got to get justice. They got to find who do this to me son.”
Ramjattan told Kaieteur news that he, too, was left shaken after viewing his young client’s injuries.
“I was shocked. It was the most abhorrent sight I have ever seen.
“The Force has some elements that are intensely cruel and inhumane…beating a client to say that he knows something about Ramnauth’s murder.
“It shows that we have gone to a wretched state. I had to shed a few tears when I saw the child,” Ramjattan told journalists.
The AFC co-leader said that in his presence, the teen alleged that the police ranks who interrogated him first covered his head with a jersey and tied his hands with wire before dousing his genitals with methylated spirits and setting him alight.
“The boy is totally traumatised.”
He pointed out that police officials attempted to “cover up” the deed and only decided to have the teen admitted to a hospital after the media broke the story.
Ramjattan said that he will be seeking justice through the courts, with the intention of having the perpetrators “prosecuted and jailed.”
Saying that he would like to see civilian oversight of the Guyana Police Force, Ramjattan expressed the view that not instituting charges against rogue policemen is an incentive for those ranks to continue to brutalise suspects.
Accusing the Government of being “deaf” to concerns about torture, Ramjattan suggested that organisations such as Amnesty International and Caricom nations be petitioned.
Two senior police officers who are spearheading the investigation into the torture visited the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station to take statements from the victim.
Meanwhile, journalists who turned up at the scene to interview the lad’s parents and the attorney were repeatedly ordered out of the police station compound.
Despite reassuring Ramjattan that they were taking the lad for medical treatment, police officials kept the teen at the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station for several hours.
During this time, the apparently dehydrated lad repeatedly asked for water.
When he eventually emerged, the teen was wrapped in a bed-sheet and his face concealed from the media.
The teen is one of several persons who were detained in connection with the murder of former Region Three Deputy Chairman, Ramnauth Bisram, who was stabbed to death in his Number Two Canal, West Bank Demerara home.
One man was charged on Friday for Bisram’s murder, and his attorneys are alleging that he, too, was badly beaten while in custody.
The teen and his parents reside a few doors from the slain man’s residence. His parents confirmed that he had done some work at Bisram’s home about a year ago when the building was being constructed.
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