Another Death Row inmate dies

Apr 10, 2011 News

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– wardens dress, handcuff body to hide the fact

By Rabindra Rooplall

A man who spent 21 years on Death Row and 26 years altogether in prison, succumbed in the Camp Street Prison Friday evening.
Prison sources are now blaming poor medical treatment for the now dead man.
The inmate Raymond Persaud, 68, called “Tarzan”, of Berbice died in the Prison’s infirmary. He was one of the longest serving inmates on Death Row and in the prison’s facility.
According to reports Persaud was suffering from various ailments, including diabetes and hypertension, while an inmate of the penal institution.
And although he was dead, Saturday morning the prison administration in a bid to fool inmates and the wider society, placed handcuffs on the dead man and shackled his feet to make it appear that he was being taken out of the facility alive.
He, along with a brother, was convicted for the murder of a waitress attached to Embassy Hotel, Rose Hall town in 1986.
His brother, Palo Rampersaud, who was also convicted, died in jail in 1998.
Reports state that Persaud was urinating blood since last year. One week ago he fell down on the corridors of Death Row and he was admitted to the prison infirmary. While there his recorded blood pressure was very high but prison authorities reportedly said that they did not have anyone to take him to hospital.
Eventually he was returned to Death Row where he collapsed again.
Angry prisoners started a ruckus and the authorities eventually took the man to hospital only for him to be returned to the prison.
His brother, Palo Rampersaud, who was jointly charged with him for the murder, also died in prison on August 21, 1998 also while he was on the Death Row.
On January 21, 1986, Raymond Persaud and Palo Rampersaud were arrested for the murder of Bibi Zorina Alli, who was found buried in a shallow grave at the eastern section of the Embassy Hotel, in Rose Hall, Berbice.
They were found guilty of murder and were sentenced to death on December 11, 1990, by Justice Claudette Singh.
Pathologist Dr Leslie Mootoo had described he killing as a ritual murder. The throat was slit and the body was buried in a standing position.
On July 17, 1998 a warrant of execution was read to Raymond Persaud and his brother, however, because the Office of the President had not been notified that interim measures had been granted by the Committee’s Rules of Procedures, the warrant was withdrawn.
In 2005 the United Nations Human Rights Commission had considered Persaud’s case and had recommended that he be released.
Other inmates who have died while on Death Row were Joseph Craig, Abdool Saleem Yassin, Manzoor Alli, Shireen Khan, and another female know as “Sancharia.”
The last executions at the Georgetown Prisons were on August 25, 1997, when Michael Archer and Peter Adams were hanged for the 1986 murder during a robbery in Berbice. Ayube Khan and Rockliffe Ross were hanged four months apart in the previous year.
Two other inmates on the Death Row are Muntaz Ally and Terrence Sahadeo who were charged with Shireen Khan, for the 1985 murder of Roshanana Kassim.
After their appeal was heard, the Guyana Court of Appeal affirmed their sentences and dismissed their appeal in 1996.
They approached United Nations Human Rights Committee that same year and it recommended that Sahadeo’s sentence be commuted to life imprisonment, but the government has not acted.
Lallman and Bharatraj Mulai have been on Death Row since July, 1994, when they were sentenced to hang for the 1992 murder of Doodnauth Seeram.
The Court of Appeal set aside the death sentence and ordered a retrial in 1995.
Again the Mulais were convicted and sentenced to death a year later.
The Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence on appeal. After several requests to the government for information on the case in April 1998, December 1998, December 2000, August 2001 and March 2003 went unanswered; the United Nations Human Rights Committee concluded in August 2004 that the brothers’ trial had been unfair and recommended “an effective remedy, including commutation of their death sentences.”
More recently, in 2002 Joseph Craig was sentenced to death for the murder of Nellis Hope, a female security guard in February 1998.
Shawn St. Hillaire was sentenced to death in April 2004 after he was found guilty of murdering his aunt, Norma Sandiford, in 2002.
In the same month Odinga Green was sentenced to death after a jury unanimously found him guilty of the murder of Sandra Harvey at Wisroc, Linden in December 1999.
In November 2005, Niranjan Rattan, also known as ‘Engine,’ was sentenced to death for the 2003 stabbing murder of Lalbahadur Singh, also called ‘Petromax.’
In July 2006, Brian Vandeyar was sentenced to hang after a jury found him guilty of the murder of Haimnauth Ramnarine in 2003. Vandeyar stabbed Haimnauth several times to his body at Governor Light, Mahaicony River.
In September the same year Devanand Tilaknauth, called ‘’Fine Boy,’ was found guilty by a jury for the 2004 murder of his wife, Chandrawattie Ramnarine, at Hampshire Village Corentyne, Berbice.

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