Firearm, ammo in Georgetown Prison?

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 December 2015, 21:00 by GxMedia

The Home Affairs Ministry on Thursday feared that firearms and ammunition are being smuggled inside the Georgetown Prison as part of a plot being hatched to cause mayhem.

Rohee vowed that every effort would be made to disrupt those plans by searching for firearms at any prison.

“Nefarious plans and conspiracies hatched in or out of prisons to disrupt the peace and good order in our society will be exposed and disrupted,” said the ministry in a statement.

Only recently a man was caught allegedly attempting to smuggle two shotgun cartridges in  a shoe into the Georgetown Prison. He was arrested and charged with illegal possession of ammunition.

The Home Ministry said the Guyana Prison Service has informed of an attempt by persons bent on derailing law and order in Guyana to smuggle several rounds of ammunition into the Georgetown Prison. “This is not the first time such attempts have been made and uncovered thanks to the alert Ranks of the Guyana Prison Service.”

Rumours that a firearm or components of a firearm have been smuggled into the Georgetown Prison are being taken seriously by the ministry.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Guyana Prison Service wishes to reassure the general public that no effort will be spared to uncover and to find any illegal firearm or components thereof at any prison location.”

Late last year, inmates attempted to burn down the Georgetown jail after police and prison wardens searched for an object that someone had hurled over the fence.

Concerns about a jail-break linger in the memories of those who recalled that on February 23, 2002 five inmates shot their way out of the city jail, marking the beginning of a violent spate of crime by heavily armed gangs that had been ensconced in the East Coast Demerara village of Buxton.

Hundreds of persons in neighbouring villages and lower East Coast had been killed, robbed or kidnapped by gang members. They included sugar industry workers, Trinidad and Tobago water utility workers and an American diplomat who were all kidnapped. Several sugar company workers were killed but the Trinidadians and the American were subsequently freed.