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“We would never leave Robert Gates unguarded”- prison official

Jun 24, 2014 News

“The Georgetown Prison would never allow Robert Gates, to go unsupervised,” one prison official told Kaieteur News yesterday. The official who spoke on the ground of anonymity explained that Gates was always under guard.
Earlier this month Kaieteur News had queried why Gates a convicted felon who is giving evidence in the Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry was allowed to wander around in and around the High Court.
According to the official, the prison was served with a summons from the Commission which they had to comply with. The official explained that Gates would at times be guarded by either uniformed or plain clothes prison guards.
“If you only make a mistake with Gates he would disappear,” the prison official told Kaieteur News. At yesterday’s sitting Gates was guarded by a female prison officer.
Gates, a former policeman, testifying before the Commission of Inquiry into the death of Walter Rodney, alleged that he was sent to infiltrate the Working People’s Alliance in the years leading up to Rodney’s death.
Gates, who goes by several aliases, was charged back in 2010 for obtaining money by false pretense after he fleeced unsuspecting persons using the ruse that he owned a car dealership.
According to Gates, the charges for which he has been convicted were allegedly “trumped” up because of his intention to give evidence at the Commission. He was charged in 2010 when the commission was not even considered.
However, it was only when Gates disclosed that he was “serving” the sentence that persons realized that he had been coming to the Commission since its inception in April without any apparent prison guard.
Gates, during all hearings, was seated at the back of the room with a woman next to him. Neither prison guard nor police would be seen accompanying him to the Commission.
It was unclear whether there is some “special arrangement” between Gates and the Commission or the Guyana Prison Service. In normal circumstances, prisoners who are brought from the Camp Street jail to give court evidence are accompanied by a Prison Guard, who promptly follows the inmate around. When the inmate is finished, a prison vehicle would be waiting for that inmate to be taken back to prison.
Commission lawyer Glenn Hanoman, when questioned about Gates, said that the idea of a Commission of Inquiry being held was floated over 30 years.  When asked about the conditions for Gates and the fact that there is no prison guard around him, Hanoman said there’s a reason for it and it was part of a plan.

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