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“I need my son home”: Mother of death row inmate cries out for justice
(Kaieteur News) – A Corentyne, Berbice mother is pleading for justice and urgency in the courts as her son remains on death row nearly a decade after his conviction, insisting that he is innocent and wrongfully imprisoned.
Nadira Saraswati, 61, says her 41-year-old son, Ian Saraswati, has been languishing at the Camp Street Prison since being sentenced to death in June 2017 for the 2014 murder of his mother-in-law, a crime she firmly believes he did not commit.
“I need my son to come home. I need my son to be home. My son is not a bad person… I need my son home with me,” the distressed mother told this publication.
Ian Saraswati was convicted at the Berbice High Court before Justice Bovell Drakes, who handed down the death sentence by hanging. The conviction stemmed from a violent incident on December 16, 2014, at Whim Village, Corentyne, where his mother-in-law was fatally chopped and his wife injured.
According to reports presented during the trial, Saraswati armed
Ian Saraswati, who was sentenced to death.
himself with a cutlass and attacked the woman while she was at her brother’s residence, before turning the weapon on his wife, Serojine Isaacs, who had reportedly left what was described as an abusive relationship and sought refuge with relatives.
Both women were rushed to the Port Mourant Hospital, with the injured mother later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries.
Saraswati was subsequently arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder. He was convicted of murder but acquitted of the attempted murder charge in 2019.
However, his mother maintains that the court got it wrong.
“Yes, he is wrongfully imprisoned, because the person who did the act, they are free… it is his grandfather-in-law who did it,” she alleged.
Relaying her son’s account of the incident, Nadira Saraswati claimed that he had gone to the home for a discussion when he was ambushed, and that the fatal blow was struck during a confrontation involving another relative.
“When he got there, he was talking… and the grandfather-in-law come up and fire the chop, and she come in between… one chop the woman get… my son didn’t do it,” she insisted.
Now, nearly nine years after his conviction, the family’s frustration has deepened as his appeal remains unresolved.
The mother says repeated efforts to get updates from the appeal court have yielded little progress.
“I always keep banging on the appeal court, and they just telling me… the judge make an error and they have to correct it. Right now, they are not correcting it, and my son is in prison,” she said.
Adding to her distress is her son’s declining health behind bars.
She disclosed that he suffers from multiple medical issues, including a herniated disc, foot complications, and persistent inflammation, requiring ongoing treatment.
“He does complain… he got a spine problem… I does visit him and I get very scared,” she said.
His legal team, attorneys Tania Warren and Arun Gossai, has filed an appeal challenging both the conviction and sentence, but the matter has yet to be heard.
In Guyana, while the death penalty remains on the books, it is not currently carried out, meaning those sentenced often remain incarcerated for extended periods as their appeals progress.
For Nadira Saraswati, however, time is a luxury she says her son cannot afford.
With his health deteriorating and his case stalled in the courts, she is now calling for the appeal to be expedited, hoping it will finally bring clarity, and what she believes will be justice.
“My son is suffering… and I just want him to come home,” she said.
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